


Between The Lines

by nineteenninetytwo (pcychedelic)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Drinking, Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Metafiction, Mild Sexual Content, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-03 09:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15816297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pcychedelic/pseuds/nineteenninetytwo
Summary: Baekhyun was the narrator of Chanyeol's life and Chanyeol hoped the story would go on forever.





	1. The Protagonist

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Stranger Than Fiction](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/434908) by Zach Helm. 



> Disclaimer:  
> This is a work of fanfiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents may represent real entities, but are used fictitiously as a product of the author's imagination; this work does not mean them any harm or offense. This work is the intellectual property of the author and it, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author. This fanfiction is heavily inspired by the work mentioned above and does not, in any way, mean to plagiarize or infringe copyright. No money is being made from this work in any shape or form.
> 
> Author's Note:  
> WHEW. It took me a little over two months to finish this, and I can say with conviction that this has been the most challenging so far. I doubted myself more than a few times as I was writing this, often thinking that I should just scrap it and not publish it at all, but thanks to the person I'm dedicating this to, I got through those doubts. If you've read my previous work, [Meet Me At Sundown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852475), reading this will definitely feel like déjà vu, BUT... I don't want to spoil anything. I guess you'll just have to see for yourself. If you haven't read Meet Me At Sundown yet, then you're definitely in for a treat. Also, I wrote this a little angstier (is that a word?) than I originally intended it to be, but oh well. I hope you enjoy reading this!
> 
> Dedication:  
> To A, who has saved me more times than I can count.

The morning started like it usually did: Chanyeol and his manager were on their way to some shooting location of a project in the same black Ford Transit they’ve been using for the past six years with his usual from The Bean Press, a tall latte splashed with mint syrup and three shots of espresso, resting inside the cup holder for his seat.

_It was easy for Chanyeol to lose track of what day of the week it was when all of them began the same way, his mornings falling into a routine that has shaped his life for more or less the past decade._

“Myeon,” Chanyeol called his manager as he remained completely frozen in his seat. “Did you say something?” He asked, though he was a hundred and one percent sure that the voice he had just heard was _way_ different from Junmyeon’s.

“No,” Junmyeon replied without looking up from his phone, probably arranging Chanyeol’s schedule for the day. “Why? Is there something wrong?”

“No, it’s just…”

_Chanyeol didn’t label days like Monday, Tuesday, and so on; for him, they were Script Reading Day, Filming Day, Promotion Day, Guesting Day—basically what work he was supposed to do for that particular day. Some days lasted for a week, some for a month, and some even longer. One could say that his sense of time was tied to how long he was working, and even though that sounded terribly depressing, Chanyeol didn’t mind._

Eyebrows furrowed, Chanyeol curiously looked around the car to see if there was someone apart from him, his manager, and the driver that could possibly be the source of that annoying voice. Of course, he knew that it wasn’t possible since the three of them were the only ones that ever used the car, but he was still confused when he found no one. Where was that stupid voice coming from?

“What are you doing?” Junmyeon asked disinterestedly. “Are you looking for something?”

“I heard something. Didn’t you?”

Junmyeon picked at his ears to make sure nothing was blocking them from hearing whatever Chanyeol was talking about and as he knew, there was nothing. “No. What is it?”

“A voice.”

_It had been Filming Day for a couple of weeks now, and as usual, Chanyeol didn’t know what day it was. It was Wednesday, but what Chanyeol only knew was that something about today felt different, he-could-feel-it-in-his-bones different._

“There it is again!” Chanyeol exclaimed, making his manager and driver jump in their seats. “Did you guys not hear it?”

“Don’t scare me like that!” Sehun complained as he almost forgot to slow the car down for an approaching speed hump. “Jesus, Yeol. I told you to lay down on the pot.”

On any other day, Chanyeol would’ve been annoyed by Sehun’s jab, but he was too freaked out by what was happening to even think of a scathing comeback. “I don’t take pot. I _swear_ I’m hearing something. Are you guys playing a prank on me?”

“Why would we do that?” Junmyeon asked. “We’re not in middle school, Chanyeol.”

Junmyeon had a point, but it was either that or Chanyeol’s brain was playing tricks on him. Must be the caffeine, he deduced. Or the fact that he was running on one and a half hours of sleep. Yeah, that must be it.

But the sane part of Chanyeol’s mind reminded him that he always took his coffee that way and that he was sleep-deprived for most of his life anyway, so if he was hearing a voice in his head that definitely didn’t belong to him, it might mean that his brain had a loose screw or two.

_Chanyeol couldn’t quite explain what he was feeling, but he somehow knew that it was his instincts going haywire, like his body knew that something was going to happen. He wondered if he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or if his barista had put something strange in his coffee. What he didn’t know was that today marked the beginning of the most important chapter in his life—a day that he would look back at in the future and think, ‘So this is what that Wednesday was all about.’_

_As for the reason why… Chanyeol was yet to find out._

“This is so weird,” Chanyeol mumbled under his breath.

Chanyeol meant that to be a personal comment, but that didn’t stop Sehun from saying, “It’s the pot. I told you.”

—

The set was as busy as it had been since the first day of filming. A high-budget production naturally meant that all eyes were on this project: fans, critics, other industry professionals, and of course, rival networks. It also meant that everything should be, quite literally, picture-perfect; every single cast and crew member were working to the bone to ensure that nothing was left unchecked.

Being the perfectionist that Chanyeol was, he was absolutely fine with that. He wouldn’t have lasted for twenty-two years in the industry if he was the type to crack easily under pressure. It was hectic, yes, but it was the kind of chaos that he liked.

By lunchtime, Chanyeol had almost forgotten about the voice that haunted him this morning.

Almost.

It was when he was alone in his holding room eating lunch and scanning through the script when he heard it again, crystal clear like a built-in speaker inside his head.

_The shoot didn’t continue for at least another hour, and so Chanyeol used this time to run through his lines for what seemed like the hundredth time for the day. He didn’t need to, actually, as he had basically memorized it and could practically recite the dialogue with his eyes closed, but he went and read it all again anyway because he loved the sound that the paper made when he turned the pages._

For the second time that day, ice replaced the blood in Chanyeol’s veins. How did the voice know that he liked the sound of turning pages?

There was a knock on the door.

Before Chanyeol could say ‘come in’, Taejoon burst through the door with the usual smile on his face.

Taejoon was only a year older than him, and Chanyeol thought that must be one of the reasons why he didn’t feel that awkward with him when they first worked with each other all those years ago. Taejoon was nice and Chanyeol wasn’t really picky with his friends, and the rest is history.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt your lunch, but I was wondering if you could help me run through the script since we’re shooting the next couple of scenes together,” Taejoon said as he casually sat on top of the makeup table. “I also ran into the director a few minutes ago and he said he wanted us to block some shots because apparently the stand-ins are—”

“Shut up,” Chanyeol interrupted. “Listen.”

_It seemed like an insignificant thing, the sound of pages turning, but it brought back a lot of memories, one of which was of Chanyeol cutting class in middle school just to finish a really good book because he was either too lazy to borrow the book out of the library or too stingy to buy himself a copy from a bookstore._

“Did you hear that?”

Baffled, Taejoon asked, “Hear what?”

Chanyeol slowly began turning the script pages again, and…

_It was odd how such a trivial noise made Chanyeol remember so much. The sound induced a handful of other memories aside from those of the school library, but they weren’t exactly the warmest. It was too early in the morning to think about childhood trauma, even for someone like Chanyeol._

“That!” He cried. “You heard that, right? ‘It was too early in the morning to think about childhood trauma.’ Please tell me you did,” he pleaded desperately.

“Um…” Taejoon scratched at the back of his head, unsure of what to say. “I guess it _is_ a bit too early for dark shit but… I didn’t hear anything.”

Chanyeol sighed in frustration. “I think I’m going crazy. Maybe all these years of overworking myself are finally taking their toll on me.”

“Should I be worried?”

Chanyeol looked at him and paused for a moment, ultimately deciding that he wasn’t the right person to tell this to, no matter how close they’ve gotten throughout the years. “No,” he said. “It’s nothing. Let’s just run through the script.”

_Brushing it off like he usually did, Chanyeol stood up from where he was seated and tossed those unpleasant memories in the back of his head where they belonged. Chanyeol didn’t exactly have a philosophy in life, but if he had one, it would probably something along the lines of, ‘There was no point in worrying about the things that you couldn’t change even if you wanted to.’_

And that was exactly what Chanyeol did: he let the voice be.

The voice didn’t say anything particularly troubling—well, the fact that it knew what Chanyeol was doing and how he was feeling was troubling in itself, but in any case, it was simply narrating Chanyeol’s life.

It was weird, yes. Uncomfortable? Totally. But what made Chanyeol even more discomfited than he already was was the fact that the voice was never wrong about anything.

The way he hated how a certain dialogue was written? It knew about that. How he thought that Jongin’s ass was cute? It was also right about that, and Chanyeol may or may not have choked on his club sandwich when it said that (Jongin _did_ look awfully gorgeous that particular day—not to mention how his thighs appeared utterly immaculate in those skin-tight jeans he was wearing).

Chanyeol learned how to tolerate the mysterious voice floating around his head and narrating his life, that is, until three days later.

It happened while he was in the middle of a take, a funeral scene for the death of the character of Taejoon’s father. As always, Chanyeol was completely immersed in the scene and in his role, but that obnoxious voice decided that it was the perfect time to say something, distracting him while filming.

_Chanyeol was extraordinarily imaginative and has always been since he was a child. It was a skill he had acquired from having a creative writer as a mother; her idea of bedtime stories was letting Chanyeol imagine himself as someone else in a certain situation and what he would do in their shoes, which he carried on up until now and was probably why he could effortlessly portray a multitude of roles._

“Not now,” Chanyeol whispered as quietly as he could so that he wouldn’t disrupt the take.

_A mail courier who was somehow involved in drug trafficking, a heating engineer that made the wrong call and accidentally burned a skyscraper to the ground, a coast guard that got lost in the Bermuda Triangle. If Chanyeol can imagine it, then the only thing left to decide is whether he wanted to play the role or not._

“Please.”

_And now, as the prop coffin was being lowered unto the ground, he couldn’t help but imagine himself as the part he had never thought of playing: dead._

_On the rare occasion of him thinking about his eventual demise, he often pictured himself as a weak old man reduced to skin and bone, dying a painless death by going to sleep and never waking up ever again._

_But of course, things in life hardly went the way people imagined them to go, and only one thing was for sure about Chanyeol’s end—it would happen sooner than he thought._

“What?” Chanyeol uttered in a mixture of disbelief and terror, and he didn’t do it quietly this time around. He _rarely_ broke character, but this has got to be an exception. The narrator, who had been right about everything in his life so far, just said that he was going to die. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Taejoon and the other cast members looked at him with wide eyes, even with fake tears from the fake funeral still streaming from them.

“Hey!” Chanyeol shouted at the voice, but to the other people on the set, it looked like he was yelling at nobody in particular. “What the hell was that? Am I going to die?”

Silence fell in the set as the cast and crew all looked at each other and at Chanyeol in confusion. Chanyeol would’ve been embarrassed on any other day, but this was a matter of life and death—quite literally, it seemed.

“Answer me!” Chanyeol screamed, but for the first time in three days, the voice said nothing.

“Cut,” the director called out quietly, far from how the line was usually said. “How ‘bout we take five? Or ten?” He suggested as he took off his monitoring headphones. “Chanyeol… a word, if you don’t mind. And bring Junmyeon with you.”

 

Chanyeol was incredibly perceptive, so he knew when he had fucked up.

If there was any kind of silver lining to this situation, it was that he had built an excellent track record for himself from being in the industry since he was fourteen. That being said, he thought (and hoped) that this small meeting between him, his manager, and his current director was nothing more than just a friendly reminder for him to get his shit together, at least until they’ve finished shooting the drama.

But boy, did the thought wrong.

“Chanyeol, I’m worried,” the director began. They were currently in his trailer for ‘the sake of privacy’ as he had put it, but Chanyeol knew that it was because he was in for a butt-whooping for acting up during a take and the director was nice enough not to let the rest of the cast and crew witness it. “It’s not just me, though. Your co-stars are worried about you too. So, care to tell me what’s wrong?”

Chanyeol narrowed his eyes. “Taejoon told you, didn’t he?” That traitor.

“All that Taejoon told me is that you’ve been hearing things. But I’ve also noticed that you’re out of your game lately.”

“Look, I’m sorry about the fiasco I did back there and I assure you that that’s never going to happen again, but I don’t understand where you’re going with this,” Chanyeol said. “What exactly are you saying?”

The director opened his mouth as if to say something, but changed his mind at the last second and looked to Junmyeon for help instead.

“What he’s saying, Yeol, is that we think that you should sit this one out for a while,” his manager explained slowly, like he was picking the safest words to use with him.

“What do you mean ‘sit this one out’?”

Junmyeon sighed. “Well… production’s still in a very early stage and you haven’t shot a lot of scenes, so recasting wouldn’t really be a problem—”

“Wait,” Chanyeol interjected, “You’re saying I’m out of the drama.” He couldn’t believe what was happening.

“That’s a harsh way of saying it, but yes,” the director confirmed. “And it’s not because of your outburst a while ago. Tell me, Chanyeol, how many projects have you had for, let’s say, the past year?”

Chanyeol wasn’t following, but he answered anyway. “Five, including this drama, if I remember correctly. Before this one, I shot a film and another drama simultaneously.”

“Simultaneously,” the director repeated. “And would you say that you’ve taken an ample amount of rest, proportionate to the work you’ve done for the past year?”

“No, I guess. But that’s normal for actors, isn’t it? You get used to it after all these years.”

The director nodded, because whether he admitted it or not, Chanyeol _did_ have a fair point. “It’s common, but it shouldn’t be normalized.”

Chanyeol couldn’t believe that a freaking director, out of all the people in the industry, would say what he just said to an actor—a seasoned one, at that.

Sure, he’s had his fair share of sleepless nights and tired days because of work, but it wasn’t something that a cup or two of coffee and a twenty-minute power nap in between takes couldn’t fix.

The industry was old, even older than this ancient director, and everyone in it has been working like dogs since the beginning of time. Chanyeol was definitely not an exception, and even though it was a terrible thing to get used to, he did. Work was work, after all.

“We’re just worried about you, Yeol,” Junmyeon said. “You did say so yourself, you’re overworking yourself. Maybe you need to take a break in the meantime and come back when you’re a hundred percent again.” Huh, so he had been talking to Taejoon as well.

“Chanyeol,” the director called him. “I know it’s hard to believe, especially when it’s coming from me, but the production team cares about your well-being. We value you as an artist, not just an actor, and we don’t want to exploit your talents when you’re going through a rough patch.”

Chanyeol was too angry to say anything and he was afraid that he would utter something he would regret, so he remained silent.

The director continued, “You’ll still get paid for the work you’ve already done, so you don’t have to worry about your hard work going to waste. The producers are even willing to double it, as compensation for recasting you on such short notice.”

It took every ounce of Chanyeol’s self-control not to scoff and roll his eyes.

He wasn’t worried about the money. Hell, he never even had a reason to worry about money for most of his life.

What pissed him off was how they thought that he was dispensable, that a small issue was enough reason for them to think that he was unfit to carry on the role, and to top it all off, they didn’t even hear him out. If they truly did value him as an artist and not just an actor like that stupid director said, they would at least give him a chance.

But Chanyeol said none of that, even though he really wanted to give them a piece of his mind. He just put on the best fake smile he could muster, shook the director’s hand, thanked him for the opportunity, wished the best for the drama he was leaving, and left the trailer because at the end of the day, professionalism was still the most important thing. And there was nothing more professional than keeping your mouth shut when all you really wanted to do was lose your shit.

 

“You knew about this,” Chanyeol accused Junmyeon as soon as they got in the van. “You knew that they would cut me off if I slipped up even just once, and you didn’t even warn me about it.”

“It’s not like that…” Junmyeon tried to reason with him, but Chanyeol was hearing none of it.

“You know, after all these years, I considered you as a friend more than a manager. I never expected you to go behind my back.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Chanyeol saw Sehun glancing at them from the rearview mirror, but he couldn’t care less. He was so angry at Junmyeon that he didn’t mind if Sehun could hear what he was saying.

“Why are you getting mad at me when all I’ve ever done is care for you and make sure you’re okay?” Junmyeon asked tiredly, like he wasn’t really in the mood to fight. “Anyone with eyes can tell that you need a break, Yeol. And you just got one.”

Chanyeol scoffed. “So, what, I’m supposed to _thank_ you for preventing me from doing the one thing I actually love doing?”

“I know how much acting means to you—”

“If you really did, you wouldn’t have done what you just did. You would tell me what I needed to know as _my_ manager, not talk with my co-stars and directors behind my back. If you can’t respect me as your friend, then at least respect me as an actor,” Chanyeol spat. “Sehun, stop the car.” Sehun did as he asked. “I’m taking a taxi home. I don’t want to be anywhere near you right now,” he said to Junmyeon and exited the car without another word.

 

Being laid off work and his (one-sided) fight with Junmyeon weren’t enough for Chanyeol to forget what the narrator said.

“Where are you, you piece of shit? Say something!” Chanyeol roared as soon as he got home, storming his walk-in closet. He tore his clothes off the racks, as if the voice were hiding between his suits and ties.

He then moved to the living room where he started sending books and other trinkets flying from their shelves. “Chanyeol furiously messed up his apartment because some turd won’t start talking!” He half-yelled, half-narrated, mocking the voice.

This went on for a few minutes until Chanyeol ran out of things to hurl. He lay exhaustedly on the carpet, surrounded by the big fat mess he just made. It wasn’t his intention to turn his apartment upside down, but he just had the shittiest day in his history of shitty days and he felt like he would’ve imploded if he kept all of his aggravation bottled up like he usually did.

Of course, his neat freak publicist just _had_ to visit him on the exact same day his apartment looked like a dumpsite.

“What the fuck happened here?” Minseok asked incredulously. Chanyeol could practically feel Minseok seething from where he was lying on the floor. “Did a storm pass by?”

Only Junmyeon and Minseok knew the passcode to his apartment, so Chanyeol wasn’t really surprised when the publicist entered unannounced, and he knew that Junmyeon wasn’t stupid enough to visit him after what happened between them today.

“Go away, Minseok. I’m not in the mood to talk about PR stunts right now.”

“What’s there to publicize?” Minseok scoffed as he made his way through the maze of a mess that was Chanyeol’s living room. “That you got cut from the drama the public’s been so hyped about? News travels fast, especially bad ones. You don’t need a publicist for that.”

Chanyeol sighed heavily and closed his eyes. He just wanted to be left alone to wallow in his misery. Could this day get _any_ longer?

“But you did give me a _lot_ of work to do,” Minseok said. Even with his eyes closed, Chanyeol could hear him picking up things from the floor and putting them back where they came from. _Neat freak_. “The agency called for a press conference tonight to beat those shitty little entertainment websites that thrive on gossip and bad rumors in breaking the news, and I’m the one who has to answer all the questions. In order to do that, I need to know what happened so I can decide on the things I should lie about.”

“What, Myeon didn’t fill you in already? I thought talking to people behind my back was his expertise?”

Minseok has been Chanyeol’s publicist for god knows how long, and Chanyeol has always admired his no-nonsense personality, but when Minseok kicked him in the shin, he might have admired him a little less.

“What are you, in high school?” Minseok scolded. “This is _work_ , Chanyeol. Stop moping around like some stupid teenager going through their rebellious phase and get your head out of your ass!”

Minseok was right about how childish Chanyeol looked right now, but Chanyeol would rather punch himself in the face than admit that out loud. So instead of saying anything, Chanyeol just stood up quietly from the floor and transferred himself to the couch where at least he wouldn’t look like a total loser.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” Minseok said nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just nagged at Chanyeol like a mother. “Junmyeon did call me to tell me what happened. But I still wanted to hear it from you.”

“Whatever Junmyeon told you, that’s what happened. I’m out of it right now.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Minseok nodded as he continued rearranging Chanyeol’s shelves. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be cleaning up your mess right now. What I need to know is _why_. Why are you ‘out of it right now’?” He asked, using air quotes in that last part.

Chanyeol pursed his lips, debating whether he should tell Minseok or not.

As he did with Junmyeon, Chanyeol regarded Minseok as more than someone from work. The three of them have been together through thick and thin, inside _and_ outside the industry. Chanyeol decided that maybe it was okay to tell Minseok first, and then tell Junmyeon when the dust settled between them.

“I’m dying.”

Minseok turned around, his face painted with an expression somewhere between horror and shock. “Are you sick? Did a doctor tell you that?” He rushed to sit beside Chanyeol on the couch and began touching him randomly, searching for signs of sickness. “You look perfectly healthy to me, though.”

“No. Listen,” Chanyeol said, removing Minseok’s hands from his face. “For the past three days… I’ve been hearing this weird voice.”

Minseok must have heard crazier things than that because his reaction was not what Chanyeol had in mind. Instead of looking at Chanyeol like he just grew another head, Minseok simply nodded, urging him to continue when Chanyeol didn’t say anything after that.

“And… what about it?” Minseok prodded. “What did the weird voice say? Was it the one that told you you were dying?”

“You’re not surprised by this at all.”

“Chanyeol, we work in show business,” Minseok said matter-of-factly, as if that explained everything. “We all have weird voices saying shit in our heads. I hear them too. They often whisper to me that I should quit my job for the sake of my sanity, and yet here I am, still talking to you, because that’s what good publicists do.”

Chanyeol shook his head, “No, you don’t understand. It’s not my conscience talking to me. It’s not my voice I’m hearing, it’s someone else’s.”

Minseok’s eyes narrowed, the confusion finally sinking in. “What do you mean?”

“This is going to sound _completely_ nuts, but…” Chanyeol began, “I’ve been hearing someone narrate my life. I first heard it three days ago, while I was on my way to the shoot. I’ve kept hearing it since, and it’s been accurate about everything so far and then it says something about me dying soon and I… I just panicked because it’s never been wrong before. That’s what caused me to lose it while we were filming and…”

“Then you were let go from the drama,” Minseok finished for him, and Chanyeol nodded.

The publicist was silent for a while, his face unreadable.

Chanyeol winced as he waited for Minseok to laugh at what he just said or say that he was completely out of his mind, but Minseok just sat there and looked at him curiously, his brows arched in thought.

“Well, say something,” Chanyeol pleaded. “I think I’m—”

“I’m thinking, you dimwit,” Minseok hissed in frustration for Chanyeol breaking his train of thought. “You said that the voice is narrating your life, right?” Chanyeol nodded. “Wouldn’t that mean that you’re part of some story?”

Chanyeol hadn’t thought of that.

“But… this isn’t _some_ story,” he tried to reason. “This isn’t a chick lit novel from Barnes & Noble. This is real life. This is _my_ life.”

Minseok sighed as he stood up from the sofa. “Look. What you just told me about some voice narrating your life is completely crazy and completely out of my line of work, and what I said is the most logical explanation I can think of right now. Well, that, and you might need to see a shrink to check if you have schizophrenia.”

“I don’t have—”

“As much as I’d like to stick around your apartment and clean up your mess…” He paused to look around Chanyeol’s hell of a living room to prove his point, “I have a press conference to prepare for and quite frankly, I’m not getting paid enough to double as your housekeeper.”

“But—”

“I suggest you talk to someone who’s better qualified for this kind of thing, because I have a lot of things to do, no thanks to you,” Minseok said. “You’re still friends with that screenwriter you knew from college, right? He’s… sort of a writer, so I’m guessing that he’s a better fit for this madness about someone narrating your life. Go talk to him and see what he has to say.”

Minseok made his way to the door with Chanyeol following.

“Don’t worry about the press,” Minseok assured him as he opened the door. “I know what to say to them. Just keep a low profile for a while and avoid interviews. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some questions to answer.”

—

The details from the press conference were out as it happened, and not long after, every search engine’s homepage was plastered with Chanyeol’s face and the news about his departure from the drama.

**BREAKING NEWS**

> _Park Chanyeol, best-known for his roles in some of the nation’s most beloved hits, has left the ensemble cast of Director Kim Jung-nam’s highly-anticipated drama, his publicist confirmed in a press conference held at the headquarters of BHV Entertainment on July 3, 2018._
> 
> _Park’s publicist has stated a “personal emergency that needs immediate and undivided attention” as the reason behind the actor’s withdrawal from the drama and revealed no further details. The actor slated to replace Park has yet to be decided._

It hurt like hell for Chanyeol to read through the article, but even so, he thought that it was a nice touch from Minseok to add that bit about an important thing that required ‘immediate and undivided attention’. Minseok sure knew how to do his job, even when Chanyeol made it hard for him.

Chanyeol figured that the best way to repay Minseok was to listen to him even just this once, and so he visited his screenwriter friend at work the following day.

“I’m busy, Chanyeol,” was the first thing that left Kyungsoo’s mouth as soon as he saw him.

Chanyeol could see that. The set was chaotic: people walking frantically in every direction, supervisors shouting orders to the crew, assistants running around like chickens with their heads cut off—or in other words, just a regular day in a television production. Chanyeol had to jog to keep up with Kyungsoo’s strides, and that was something, given that the man had noticeably shorter legs than him.

“We’re all busy, Soo, but I need to talk to you.”

“Busy? _You_?” Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow at him. “From what I heard, you’re unemployed at the moment.

“On vacation,” Chanyeol corrected.

“Oh, right. The ‘personal emergency’,” Kyungsoo said with finger quotes. “I thought that required… what did Minseok say? Immediate and undivided attention, was it? So why are you here annoying me when I’m busy instead of attending to that very important matter?”

“Because I need your help with it,” Chanyeol explained. He didn’t expect Kyungsoo to stop walking when he did. “Please,” he begged, “I think I’m in trouble.”

 

Kyungsoo was never one to give exaggerated reactions—or any reaction, for that matter—so it didn’t come off surprising to Chanyeol when Kyungsoo just sat there and looked at him blankly when he had finished explaining his situation.

“Are you on drugs?”

Chanyeol drew a sharp breath as he ran his fingers through his hair and tugged at them rather harshly out of mainly frustration. It was the second time this week that he was accused of being a crackhead. “No, Soo. I’m not high, I’m not taking—”

“Is everything alright at home?” Kyungsoo frowned.

“I live alone.”

“Exactly my point,” Kyungsoo muttered, as if Chanyeol hadn’t already heard enough about his relationship status—or lack thereof—from him at least twice a month.

A woman carrying a shitload of binders suddenly burst through the doors of Kyungsoo’s office, set the paperwork beside where Kyungsoo was sitting on his desk with an unenthusiastic, “New sketches. Have a good day,” and left the room without saying anything else, slamming the door on her way out.

“Is everyone working here usually rude?”

Kyungsoo shook his head absentmindedly as he picked up a folder from the stack and began scanning through the pages. “Nah, it’s just a busy week. Busier than usual. Ratings picked up a couple of days ago, and now bosses expect segment writers to shit new skits like it’s nothing. A bunch of dicks, if you ask me.” His face became more and more disgusted as he went through the proposals and when he decided that he had enough, he closed the folder with a loud snap and tossed it angrily back at the pile. “Listen, Yeol. I can’t help you.”

Chanyeol jumped from his seat. “What? Why?”

Instead of answering his friend’s question, Kyungsoo stood up from atop his desk and walked out of the room without saying anything, and naturally, Chanyeol had no choice but to follow him.

As they were walking around the studio, Kyungsoo made a call to someone Chanyeol assumed as one of the junior writers under his wing, because he wouldn’t have shouted, “Baekhyun can write better than any of you dumb fucks, and he’s been here for barely a week!” if he was talking to one of his superiors.

_After days of feeling numb, Chanyeol felt it again: the chill that infested his bones like it first did on Wednesday. He wasn’t sure why a mere mention of someone’s name—a stranger’s, at that—would send frost creeping up his spine._

“W-who’s Baekhyun?” Chanyeol asked shakily when Kyungsoo hung the phone up.

“My assistant. He’s new. It doesn’t matter.”

_It didn’t matter, was what his friend said, but a gut feeling told Chanyeol that it did matter. Oh, he had no idea how much it mattered. Well, at least not yet._

“Listen, Yeol. I love you and everything but I can’t help you right now, not because I simply don’t want to, but because I’m insanely busy. The higher-ups are expecting so much from me as the head writer and as much as I hate them with all my soul, I still want to do this perfectly, mostly for my pride,” Kyungsoo explained. “Besides, I don’t think I’m the best person to be asked about literary stuff. I studied filmmaking, not literature. You know that.”

Chanyeol still couldn’t quite shake off the nauseating shiver than ran through his body, but he managed to ask, “Aren’t you a screenwriter?”

“Yes, Chanyeol, I’m a screenwriter. I studied filmmaking. They teach screenwriting in film school.”

“Oh,” was all Chanyeol said.

“But,” Kyungsoo interjected, “I do know someone that can help. He’s a literature professor from Rochefort. I think I can arrange something. I’ll tell you when I’m free.”

“Okay.”

“Dude, are you… okay?” Kyungsoo frowned. “You look pale. Would you like a glass of water before you go?”

Chanyeol nodded, his forehead beginning to bead with cold sweat. “Water would be nice.”

He had a strange feeling about Kyungsoo’s new assistant.

—

Every Wednesday at exactly 9 a.m., Professor Kim Jongdae entered Room 604 of the Romançon Building at Rochefort University to conduct a three-hour-long lecture for the Creative Writing class he was assigned to teach to the sophomore literature majors.

When the clock sported a right angle with the hour hand pointed at nine and the minute hand pointed at twelve, his students can expect him to burst through the door and immediately get down to business, wasting little to no time on pleasantries and greetings. He clocked in right on the dot—no more, no less—and the same can be said in the way he promptly ended his classes when his time was up.

His astounding punctuality was well-known throughout campus, and has been commended by the dean of the College of Liberal Arts more than once, making him one of the most respected professors in the university despite being also one of the youngest. Well, he was in his mid-thirties, but that was still young compared to his colleagues who were well into their golden years.

Kim Jongdae’s incredible time management skills were the product of years and years and playing the part of the perfect son to his mother that was left to raise him on her own. Everything in his life was meticulously calculated down to every second, every period, every breath. Not many surprises came his way, but when they did, he usually had a remedy at hand that allowed him to circumvent it.

But to the surprise that was waiting for him outside the lecture hall when he finished his class at exactly noon, he had no answer.

“Doh Kyungsoo.”

The name still tasted bitter on his tongue, even though he had come to terms with their… past.

“Hello, Jongdae.” His voice still sounded as deep as ever, the professor thought. It still spread warmth throughout his body, and he absolutely hated that even after all these years, this man still had an effect on him. “It’s good to see you.”

He couldn’t say the same, so instead of replying, he just offered a quick nod. Naturally, his eyes fell on the tall man beside Doh Kyungsoo. He looked very familiar, and it was only when the man smiled that he realized who he was: the famed actor Park Chanyeol. But what was he doing here at the university? And with Doh Kyungsoo?

“Another tall one,” he remarked, his tone coming out accusatory. But he wasn’t the one to blame for that. “I see you have a thing for tall men. Yifan was a bit taller, but I guess this one will do.”

Park Chanyeol’s big round curious eyes darted back and forth between the two men in front of him, completely oblivious to their history. But Kim Jongdae could tell how the stranger sensed the tension between him and his ex… well, Doh Kyungsoo never did become his boyfriend to begin with, so perhaps labeling him as an ex-boyfriend wasn’t correct.

“Can we talk somewhere that’s preferably not the corridor?” Doh Kyungsoo asked. Although his wording wasn’t exactly the kindest of requests, his tone was gentle enough—something Kim Jongdae hasn’t heard in many years. “Please.”

 

“I thought you were friends,” Chanyeol whispered to Kyungsoo.

The three of them were in a coffee shop just a few minutes away from campus. It was lunchtime, but the café was nearly empty; it wasn’t exactly a hotspot for the students, Jongdae explained. Usually it was the professors that came here and bought drinks to accompany them while they made presentations, encoded grades, and other stuff that professors did. Chanyeol could see why—the place gave off a different kind of sophisticated vibe that other popular shops didn’t, and it wasn’t exactly the aura that matched that of a college student’s. That, and the coffee was also ridiculously overpriced.

“I never said that,” Kyungsoo replied before he took another sip of his drink. He didn’t make an effort to whisper back, as if he wanted Jongdae to hear it.

If Jongdae minded, he didn’t show it. He chuckled a little bit at Kyungsoo’s statement. “Oh, we _were_ friends. But that’s a thing of the past now,” he explained. “Now, what did you want to talk about?” Chanyeol opened his mouth to speak, but Jongdae interrupted, “Wait, I have a question first.”

Kyungsoo raised his brow.

“Are you two…”

Jongdae didn’t have the chance to finish his question. “No,” Kyungsoo said firmly. “He’s my best friend. _Just_ my best friend. And in case you also wanted to ask, no, I’m not with Yifan anymore.”

Chanyeol already felt bad that Kyungsoo had never mentioned Jongdae to him, but he would be an even more terrible friend if he didn’t know who Yifan was. He was the first man Kyungsoo ever loved, but like all first loves, it was never meant to last. But why would Jongdae care about that?

“Ah, that’s sad,” Jongdae said, though there was nothing sympathetic about his tone. “But I don’t give a flying fuck about him. He can choke for all I care.”

That was a bit harsh, Chanyeol thought. As far as he knew, Kyungsoo and Yifan ended on quite good terms. And Jongdae did mention him and Kyungsoo being friends before, so why did Jongdae seem to hate—

Oh.

Chanyeol finally put the pieces together.

“I take it you never mentioned me to your friend over here?” Jongdae asked Kyungsoo as he pointed at Chanyeol. “Poor thing looks like he understood everything just now.”

Kyungsoo’s expression looked placid enough, like it wasn’t his intention to hurt Jongdae with his next words, but they were venomous nonetheless. “There was nothing to mention.”

A pained expression flashed across Jongdae’s features—something between a cringe and a grimace—but it disappeared just as quickly as it came. It was like he had trained his emotions not to show on his face.

“Whatever,” Jongdae grumbled. “What do you want? Make it quick, I have another class at two o’clock.”

Despite Jongdae’s feelings towards Chanyeol’s friend, he actually listened well to what the actor had to say. The professor’s interest only seemed to grow the more Chanyeol explained his situation, and by the time he had finished, Jongdae’s gaze was locked on him, intense with focus. Chanyeol could practically see the gears turning inside Jongdae’s mind. And he really couldn’t blame him since this was in Jongdae’s field of work; it was only natural for him to be fascinated with what Chanyeol was going through.

“Okay, Chanyeol. I’ll help you,” the professor finally said after quite some time. “Meet me tomorrow at my office in the Literature Department. You can ask any student for directions. Just…” He pointed at Kyungsoo, “Don’t bring him with you.”

Chanyeol’s best friend only looked amused.

—

Jongdae’s office looked more like a library than anything else.

Shelves filled with what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of books stood in for the walls and ran from the ceiling down to the floor. Chanyeol thought that it should be physically impossible for anyone to have read that many titles, but a gleam in Jongdae’s eyes made him think otherwise. He was a literature professor, after all.

_The room smelled like old paper and coffee, a combination that strangely went well together. As Chanyeol settled down on the brown worn-down sofa, he couldn’t help but feel years younger—back in his father’s study where he wasn’t permitted to enter but still sneaked into anyway, spending hours reading books about laws and constitutions and cases and even though he didn’t understand them at the time, he continued flipping through the pages because he liked how elegant words like ‘alimony’ or ‘ex parte’ or ‘res judicata’ rolled against his tongue._

_But more than that, it was in his father’s study where the sounds of dinnerware smashing and wood cracking didn’t reach his young ears. Little Chanyeol’s idea of a safe haven was a place where it was dark and cool and where he was surrounded by books, with the sound of pages turning the only noise there was, and perhaps part of that idea stayed with the older version of him as well._

“Chanyeol, is everything okay?” Jongdae asked, his expressive eyebrows curved in concern.

“Yeah, I just… remembered a bad memory,” he let out a half-heart chuckle. “Weird.”

Jongdae didn’t look entirely convinced, but left Chanyeol alone anyway. The professor walked over to the coffee machine on a small table in the corner of the room where a fresh batch had just finished brewing. Chanyeol declined a cup when he was offered one, as he had decided to tone down on caffeine now that he didn’t need it as much anymore.

“Okay. The narrator. What does she sound like?”

“Actually, it’s… it’s a man.”

Jongdae then began scribbling on a brown leather notebook. It was safe to assume that it was old, judging from how the edges of the spine were flaking and the pages were turning yellow. Chanyeol looked at the journal curiously and wondered if that was where the professor jotted down the ideas he came up with and used for his literary work. He couldn’t help but think if Jongdae was going to use his story as a plot device for his next piece.

“Does he sound familiar?” Jongdae asked, to which Chanyeol shook his head. “What’s his manner of speaking? Is it suspenseful, comical, or something else?”

That was a hard question. Chanyeol really didn’t think much about the way the voice narrated as he was more focused on what it was narrating. “He talks a bit like me, I guess. Like a normal person, I mean. But with better vocabulary and everything. Sometimes he’s funny, like when he said something about me thinking about how my co-worker’s… um, ass is cute.” Chanyeol didn’t miss the way Jongdae bit back a smile. “But we both know how this story ends.”

“We don’t know that for sure yet,” Jongdae tried to sound reassuring, but Chanyeol could sense the uncertainty in his tone. “Writers are wicked people, you know. They absolutely love plot twists. They like toying with their readers, making them think they’ve figured out the story when in reality, they’ve barely scratched the surface.”

Chanyeol hoped he was right.

“When was the last time you heard him?”

“A few minutes ago, actually,” Chanyeol said. “Just before we started. When you asked if I was okay… that’s just the face I make when he says something a bit too personal.”

Jongdae tilted his head in curiosity. “The bad memory?”

Chanyeol nodded weakly. “It feels so weird that he knows stuff like that, things I’ve never told anyone. I feel like I’m being stalked. It’s suffocating.”

“Well, writers know everything about their characters. That’s a given,” Jongdae replied. “Do you remember anything he has narrated?”

“Not really,” Chanyeol shook his head, “Just… bits and pieces. On the first day that I heard him, he said something about that day marking the beginning of the most important chapter in my life. Three days after that, he said I would die sooner than I expected. What the hell is that supposed to mean? He literally just said that I’m entering an important chapter in my life and then suddenly I’m going to die? What kind of author does that? Aren’t they supposed to root for the main character?”

“Actually, no,” the professor answered as he stood up to get more coffee. It was his fourth cup of the day and he usually only drank this much coffee during finals week, but he had a feeling that he was going to need all the caffeine in the world if he was going to help Chanyeol. “Writers can do anything to their characters. They don’t necessarily have to root for a character just because they’re the protagonist. As a matter of fact, most writers love shitting on their main characters.”

“That’s not really helpful.”

Jongdae smiled cheekily. “Well, I’m not lying. Jay Gatsby, Benjamin Button, Romeo Montague, Juliet Capulet. What’s the first thing that popped into your head just now?”

“Uh… that you really like Fitzgerald and Shakespeare?”

“No, Chanyeol,” Jongdae sighed. At least Chanyeol knew his classics. “They’re all the main characters, and yet they died.”

Chanyeol was beginning to doubt the expertise of the professor. “A minute ago you told me that nothing’s conclusive yet, and now you’re giving examples of protagonists who died in their own stories.”

“I’m just trying to prove the point that the hero gets the most shit in a narrative compared to the other characters,” the professor justified.

Other characters…

Chanyeol had a thought.

“I forgot to mention… the narrator was sort of hinting about a new character,” Chanyeol recalled. He could still feel the chill that ran through his spine when he heard that name. “Baekhyun.”

“Baekhyun?” Jongdae knitted his eyebrows. “How do you know this Baekhyun?”

“I don’t. Well, he’s Kyungsoo’s new assistant. I haven’t met him yet.”

The professor stood up from his seat once again to fetch himself another cup of coffee. Chanyeol had stopped counting how many times the man went and got himself a refill. For a man of small stature, he sure had a lot of room for caffeine.

“And… what exactly did the narrator say about Baekhyun?” Jongdae asked and then took a sip from his mug. He was onto something, Chanyeol could tell, though Chanyeol didn’t want to ask him about it just yet in fear of disrupting his train of thought.

“It said that he mattered. Baekhyun.”

“He mattered?”

“Yeah. I don’t exactly remember, but… I think it said something like I didn’t know how much Baekhyun mattered, or something like that,” he expounded. “It doesn’t make sense, though. I haven’t even heard of him until yesterday, how does that make him a person of great importance to me?”

Jongdae picked up his notebook and began writing something rather long, encircling a portion of the bottom page of the journal more than a few times. Chanyeol wondered what that was. The professor then walked over to his wall of books and began picking titles off the shelves like they were apples from a tree.

“I think I need to do some extensive reading before I can help you any further,” he said. “In the meantime, try to develop the plot with Baekhyun. You have to meet him at some point if the narrator’s adamant about him being so important in the story.”

“I’ll… I’ll see what I can do,” Chanyeol nodded. “Thank you, Professor Kim. Really. I thought that you thought that I was crazy and that you weren’t going to help me.”

“Only my students call me Professor Kim. Please call me Jongdae,” he smiled, his lips forming a unique curve, reminiscent of those curly brackets on keyboards. “I’ll call you when I find something. Let’s just hope the narrator doesn’t kill you by then.”

 

Chanyeol was beyond thankful that Kyungsoo was nice enough to pick him up at Rochefort that evening as he didn’t think he could’ve  managed to hail a cab under the heavy downpour of rain.

It seemed as if the skies felt how he was feeling and decided to reflect it, the road barely visible as they drove back home, urging Kyungsoo to keep his hazard lights blinking and his wipers set to the fastest setting.

“This rain is crazy,” Kyungsoo muttered to himself, as he leaned towards the windshield, as if that made him see the streets better when, in fact, it didn’t.

Spending the afternoon with Jongdae and trying to do close reading on his life like it was some book to write a term paper about absolutely drained the life out of Chanyeol. He just wanted to go home and sleep and wake up the next day and realize that everything that was happening to him was just some horrible nightmare.

Kyungsoo’s next words, however, sent him back to the crazy reality that he was living in. “So, how did it go with Jongdae?”

“He’s nice,” Chanyeol said truthfully. “We haven’t gotten far with the whole narrator thing, but we’re definitely getting somewhere. Definitely better than how clueless I was for the past couple of days.”

Kyungsoo was about to say something when his phone suddenly rang. He muttered a quick apology and then proceeded to answer the call, putting it on loudspeaker. “Baekhyun, I’m driving.”

Chanyeol went still.

“Sorry,” the man on the other line said. “I’m at your place and I don’t want to ruin the stuff on your desk because they’re so organized… where do you want me to put the approved sketches for next week’s episode?”

Chanyeol’s heart thrashed against his chest, his mind reeling from the discovery that hit him faster than a truck at a hundred miles per hour. _That’s not possible_ , he thought, and just when he decided that his mind was playing tricks on him because of how tired he was, Baekhyun spoke again.

“Oh, by the way, I’m heading back to HQ after this and I was wondering if you needed me to drop or get something from there so you won’t have to tomorrow.”

Impossible.

“Put the sketches in my desk drawer, the second one from the bottom,” Kyungsoo replied. “Budget allocation for the next few episodes are in there too and—”

Chanyeol interrupted, whispering in disbelief, “Soo, that’s him.”

“What?”

“It’s him,” Chanyeol swallowed nervously. “That’s him. Baekhyun’s the narrator.”


	2. The Narrator

Chanyeol had imagined that the narrator would be an old, ugly, balding middle-aged man in a tweed jacket with disgusting bits of food and cigarette ash stuck in his scruffy beard—his twelfth grade English teacher, basically. He never really wanted to put a face to the voice intruding in his head, but when it was beginning to irritate the fuck out of him, he couldn’t help but picture him as the most repulsive man he could think of.

But the man who was sitting across him inside Kyungsoo’s dining room was the complete opposite.

Baekhyun wasn’t old, he definitely wasn’t balding, and by all means, he was nowhere near ugly. He had sparkly eyes and soft-looking skin and silky hair that rested on his forehead, and Chanyeol couldn’t stop staring at his lips, not when Baekhyun licked and bit them like every three minutes.

“Is there something on my face?”

 _Yes, you’re unbelievably beautiful_ , Chanyeol wanted to say, but that would make him look like a complete creep. “Uh, no. Sorry you just… very much look like someone I know,” he lied.

“Oh. Okay. It’s alright,” Baekhyun replied. “I thought you were staring because I had some dirt on my face. That would’ve been embarrassing.”

Kyungsoo uncharacteristically snorted from where he was standing by the stove, preparing his famous pasta amatriciana for dinner, amused at the awkwardness between his best friend and his assistant.

He thought that Baekhyun would have left his house by the time he and Chanyeol arrived but was surprised when he found his assistant sitting awkwardly in the living room, looking like a lost puppy. Baekhyun told him that he couldn’t leave because of the heavy rain and he forgot to bring an umbrella, so Kyungsoo offered him to stay for dinner and wait until the rain stopped.

“Baekhyun, do you know who he is?” Kyungsoo asked as he took some spices out of the cupboards.

Chanyeol suddenly remembered that he hadn’t properly introduced himself yet and began to say, “Oh, I’m Park—”

“It’s okay, Mr. Park,” Baekhyun smiled. “I know who you are. I mean, who wouldn’t, right? I’m Byun Baekhyun, by the way. I started working for Kyungsoo just this week,” he said, extending his right hand for Chanyeol to shake.

Chanyeol accepted the handshake and noticed that Baekhyun had a firm grip for someone with soft and slender hands. “Nice to meet you, Baekhyun.”

“This is going to be interesting,” Kyungsoo said to no one in particular, his back still facing where Baekhyun and Chanyeol were seated as he sprinkled some salt in the boiling pasta.

Baekhyun, clearly confused, asked, “Why?”

“Oh, nothing, Baek,” the screenwriter singsonged, much to Chanyeol’s irritation.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Chanyeol said. “I need to make an important phone call.”

Chanyeol left the dining room and transferred himself to the bathroom to make sure that no one would hear him. He fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed Jongdae’s number, the line ringing for a few seconds before the professor answered.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important, but I really need to talk to you,” he said as soon as Jongdae accepted the call, adrenaline crawling everywhere on his body. “I found him.”

“It’s okay. I was just packing up before going home,” Jongdae replied. “You found who?”

“The narrator.”

“What?” The professor asked disbelievingly. “I thought he was just in your head?”

“He is, but I just met Baekhyun and… he sounds exactly the same as the narrator.”

“Isn’t that the same guy that the narrator said mattered?” Jongdae questioned, and before Chanyeol could confirm, he added, “Holy shit. Maybe that’s the reason why he matters to the plot!” He quipped. “But… the story’s being narrated in third person, right? How can Baekhyun narrate in the third person and be one of the characters at the same time?”

“I don’t know!” Chanyeol blurted out. “I’m sorry. I’m just… I’m freaking out. I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s okay, Chanyeol. Just calm down. What was his name again?”

“Baekhyun. Byun Baekhyun.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out about him,” the professor said. “In the meantime, just try to be your usual self, even though you’re freaking out. Don’t do or say anything to him that might disrupt the narrative, like tell him he’s the narrator or something. Let’s just see first where the story’s headed and work from there. I think it’s best to let it unfold on its own before we try to do anything else.”

There was a knock on the bathroom door, followed by Kyungsoo’s voice. “Yeol, dinner’s ready. You okay in there?”

“Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute,” Chanyeol replied and then brought back the phone to his ear. “Please call me immediately when you find something. I know this shouldn’t be your priority because you’re a professor and everything, but you’re the best shot I have in figuring this out.”

“It’s nothing, Chanyeol. I want to help you.”

“Thank you, Jongdae. Really.”

Chanyeol splashed some water on his face before leaving the bathroom, the uneasiness not quite leaving his body just yet. He had no idea how he was going to handle this without losing his mind.

When he returned to the dining room, Baekhyun was already getting his second helping, but stopped midway to say, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is everything okay, Mr. Park?”

 _Oh, you have no idea_ , Chanyeol thought.

 

That night, Chanyeol tossed and turned restlessly on his bed, his mind still replaying the encounter with Baekhyun. No matter how hard he tried to think about other things, he simply couldn’t, mainly because there was literally nothing else to think of—he had no projects at the moment, his lovelife was nonexistent, he didn’t even have a pet to look after. He was already aware that he was somewhat of a workaholic, but the gravity of it only settled with him now that he didn’t have work to distract him.

Distracting him was now Baekhyun’s job, apparently.

_It had been a while since Chanyeol’s heart beat like it was doing right now, and before tonight, he was even convinced that nothing could ever make it race like this again. But it was strange how the universe worked, that in the small space of his friend’s home, he would cross paths with a man that would help him find answers to the questions he didn’t even know he wanted to ask._

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up,” Chanyeol whispered into the emptiness of his room. “You’re not even making sense.”

As he willed himself to sleep (and failed miserably, no thanks to a certain downturned-eyed boy), he wondered for the hundredth time what he had done to deserve all of this.

—

Chanyeol watched Baekhyun work through a stack of unedited sketches Kyungsoo asked him to proofread. A pen twirled in between the assistant’s delicate fingers while his soft eyes hardened in focus towards the paperwork in front of him, his lips puckering as he bit the inside of his cheek. Chanyeol couldn’t quite understand why he was feeling a pinch in his chest at the sight of Baekhyun doing practically nothing.

“Please stop stalking my assistant, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo said tonelessly as he typed away on his computer. “Do you not have anything better to do than hang out here in my office and spy at Baekhyun through the window blinds like a total creep?”

“I’m not—”

“Oh, right. You’re jobless at the moment.”

“Hey!” Chanyeol protested, “That joke’s starting to hurt now, okay? I told you I’m sensitive to that topic.” He turned to the window once again to continue his not-spying on Baekhyun. “Why are you even making him revise skits? Isn’t that a little too important for an assistant?”

The loud yet pleasant sound of keys clacking continued for a few moments before Kyungsoo responded. “The kid can write,” he said. “He initially applied as a staff writer, but the screening team, me included, was so blown away with his application piece that we felt like it wasn’t right to just hire him as a spare tire when the junior writers fuck up. And so we collectively agreed that I take him under my wing and see where his potential can take him with my supervision.”

Of course, Chanyeol was no stranger to Baekhyun’s capability to write—if there was anything more direct than a first-hand experience, that was what Chanyeol felt. If anything, he was more surprised that he managed to impress Kyungsoo, given that his best friend was usually a tough egg to crack.

Chanyeol  resumed looking at Baekhyun curiously through the blinds of the office window, wondering how such a sweet-looking boy could possibly kill him off in his own story. Unfortunately, Kyungsoo couldn’t take any more of his ogling at his assistant.

Kyungsoo pressed a button on the telephone on his desk and said, “Baek, come in here please.”

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Baekhyun replied. “Let me just finish this page real quick.” The line beeped once and then died.

Chanyeol turned around so quickly that he almost fell from the single sofa chair. “What are you doing?” He asked Kyungsoo, not liking the look his best friend had on his face.

“You’re not going to accomplish anything looking at him from afar like some loser,” Kyungsoo said. “I can see that you’re itching to talk to him, so here’s your chance. Say thank you.”

“I don’t—” Chanyeol began to say, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by the entry of the boy he was so not staring at just a few moments earlier.

“Hey boss,” Baekhyun chirped as he entered the room. “You wanted something?”

Kyungsoo removed the thick-framed glasses he was wearing and put on the fakest smile Chanyeol had ever seen him do. He was certainly up to no good. “Yeah. This damn outline is due tomorrow and I need all the time I can get in order to finish it on time. I have to take a working lunch today and I was wondering if you could…”

“Get you something to eat,” Baekhyun finished his sentence for him with a smile on his face. Chanyeol thought he had the most perfect teeth in the world. “Sure, no problem.”

The assistant was about to leave the room when Kyungsoo suddenly called out, “Can you take Chanyeol with you?” Baekhyun froze and slowly turned around. Kyungsoo continued, “I can’t think clearly when he’s breathing here in my office. Can you let him annoy you for a little while?”

Baekhyun was clearly confused by his boss’ odd request, but if he minded it, Chanyeol couldn’t say. “Of course,” he smiled once again. “C’mon, Mr. Park.”

 

Bélair has always been quiet, even during the lunch rush on weekdays. Apart from the upper classes, the neighborhood was also home to the country’s most prominent broadcasting companies and film studios, which naturally meant that Chanyeol was well-acquainted with every twist and turn of its streets.

Baekhyun, on the other hand, was obviously new to the place.

Chanyeol usually associated the word ‘lunch’ with something heavy and satisfying (or, at the very least, a proper sandwich), not food from the Family Mart across the headquarters of KBC as what Baekhyun had in mind. When he politely asked him if they could get food someplace else, Baekhyun tensed up and explained shyly that he didn’t know what the good restaurants were in the neighborhood.

“I know a great place just a couple blocks from here,” Chanyeol suggested. “We can eat there if you’re okay with that.” When Baekhyun looked conflicted about saying yes, he added, “Don’t worry about Kyungsoo. We used to eat there all the time. He’ll probably give you a raise when you bring him food from there.”

“Wouldn’t he be mad if I took too long?”

Chanyeol shook his head. “He just used you as a reason to send me out of his office,” he admitted. “He probably wants you to take a break, too.”

Baekhyun smiled at that, and eventually agreed to Chanyeol’s suggestion.

It had been a while since Chanyeol had a project in Bélair. Nothing much changed; it was still the same uppity, squeaky clean community as he remembered, but at the same time, walking through its thoroughfares after so long felt new—refreshing, in a way, like he was exploring the neighborhood for the first time like Baekhyun was.

Or maybe it was because he was suddenly hyperaware of his surroundings because of the rapid beating of his heart against his ribs, which may or may not be because of the boy walking beside him.

A few blocks into their walk, Chanyeol noticed Baekhyun looking behind him every other minute. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he asked, “What are you doing? Are you waiting for someone to jump on you, or something? It’s not that kind of neighborhood, I’m telling you. Most of the people who live and work here are probably richer than rich.”

“No, it’s just… aren’t you supposed to be wearing a mask or something?” The boy mused. “You’re surprisingly okay with walking around here casually.”

“No one bothers celebrities around here,” Chanyeol chuckled. “They see one every day, they’re probably sick of our faces.”

Baekhyun’s seemed to relax a bit at that, his shoulders slightly loosening up. “Okay. But what about the paparazzi?”

“They usually don’t come around here,” he explained. “But even if they do, I don’t mind being photographed. Well, unless I’m in a bad mood.” Baekhyun nodded faintly in understanding. “What about you? You’re surprisingly okay with walking with a celebrity. You weren’t even fazed or anything when we first met.”

Baekhyun laughed, an authentic and hearty cackle that did things to Chanyeol’s chest. “You’re used to people getting starstruck with you, aren’t you?” He asked, though it was more of a statement of fact than a legitimate question.

“Not to sound big-headed, but… yeah.”

Baekhyun sighed as he put his hands inside the pockets of his jeans. “My mom was a huge fan of yours,” he began, “Every time I went to her house I saw your face all over the place. I kind of got used to you even though I never met you before last night, if that makes sense.”

It did, and before Chanyeol could ask anything else, they arrived at their destination.

Café Romulo was this quaint little restaurant that was the best-kept secret of Bélair. Before Chanyeol got bombarded with projects for the past year, he and Kyungsoo would always have lunch or dinner here whenever they were free, a habit that started way back in their early twenties when Chanyeol was just taking up supporting roles for small-scale dramas and indie films and when Kyungsoo was starting as an intern for KBC. It amazed Chanyeol sometimes how he and Kyungsoo managed to remain good friends throughout the years.

The walls of the restaurant that used to be pale yellow were now repainted to white, Chanyeol noticed, and it gave the place an even lighter and homier atmosphere than it did before. Besides that, everything else stayed the same: the furniture, the little mismatched frames on the wall that said stuff like _home sweet home_ and _eat, pray, love_ and _good food, good company_ , even the staff.

“I’ll be damned. If it isn’t Park Chanyeol,” Minho greeted as they entered. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Chanyeol went and hugged his old friend. “Ah, you know how it gets. I was kind of busy for a while, so I haven’t been around Bélair as much.”

Minho ushered them into the booth that Chanyeol and Kyungsoo practically owned, Baekhyun timidly following behind the two tall men.

Minho was as chatty as ever, and in just the span of a few minutes, Chanyeol had practically caught up with everything remotely interesting that happened in the neighborhood, which wasn’t much, given that Bélair was as subtle as it could be.

“Oh, where are my manners. I’m Choi Minho,” he introduced himself to Baekhyun as he extended his hand. “I own this joint, though I enjoy waiting tables once in a while. Are you Chanyeol’s boyfriend?”

Chanyeol was drinking water as Minho said this, and, like the clumsy person he was, he choked on his drink. His nostrils were starting to burn. Some water made it up there, for sure. Fucking Minho and his stupid questions.

Baekhyun only laughed at his question and then shook his head, “No I’m not. I’m just… an acquaintance,” he said. “I actually work for Kyungsoo as his assistant. I’m Baekhyun.”

“Hmm. I was starting to wonder what happened to Yixing,” Minho said mostly to himself, but of course they heard it anyway. “Nice to meet you, Baekhyun. You’ll love working here in Bélair, I’m sure. What are you having today?”

Baekhyun, unsure of what to order, glanced back and forth between the menu and Chanyeol. Still recovering from his embarrassing debacle, Chanyeol managed to helpfully say, “I’ll have the usual.”

“I’ll get whatever he’s having,” Baekhyun smiled politely.

Minho nodded as he collected the menu books and strode back towards the kitchen, which he managed to do in about ten steps, thanks to his insanely long legs. When he was out of earshot, Baekhyun leaned towards Chanyeol.

“You bring all your boyfriends here?”

Chanyeol hoped that his face wasn’t as red as he felt it was. “No,” he answered defensively, purposelessly straightening his shirt at the shoulders just for the sake of doing something to lessen the awkwardness in the air. “I only ever ate here with Kyungsoo.”

“Okay, I believe you,” Baekhyun smirked, raising his hands up as if to say he comes in peace. “You can stop blushing now, Mr. Park.”

Chanyeol drank some more water to cool down his flushing cheeks. He still wasn’t quite used to conversing with Baekhyun when he only heard his voice before when it was narrating his life—and his looming death that he hasn’t quite forgotten—and now the smug little shit actually had the nerve to tease him, no thanks to the unhelpful remark that Minho made.

To be fair, Chanyeol wasn’t entirely telling the truth. He did bring a boy or two to Café Romulo, back when he still had the time and energy to date, but that was all those boys ever were: dates. Chanyeol never got around to actually being in a relationship for reasons he didn’t even know himself; he just didn’t feel like being tied down to one person. ‘ _The world is your oyster,’_ his mom used to say, though she probably meant it in a different way than what Chanyeol had interpreted.

“Okay, enough about me. You’re getting on my nerves, kid,” he said jokingly, though he meant it half-truthfully. “Tell me about you.”

Baekhyun flashed another one of those grins that made Chanyeol forget that he was supposed to hate him for killing him off in his own story. “Okay. What do you want to know about me?”

Chanyeol had to start somewhere, but he couldn’t exactly say, _‘You like writing, right? Have you ever written a story about me that ends in my untimely death?’_ And so instead, he asked, “What did you do before working for Kyungsoo?”

Baekhyun thought for a moment. “Not much,” he began. He then explained that he was hired as a junior copy editor for a small publishing house in Rousseau fresh after graduation, where he interned in his fourth year of college. Since Rousseau was halfway across the country, Chanyeol asked how he managed to land a job at KBC, to which Baekhyun replied, “Mom got really sick so I had to move back here. I figured that I would be here for a while, so might as well find a job while I looked after her.”

“How’s your mom doing right now?”

“She passed, not too long before I moved back here. It was like she was just waiting for me to come home before she could go,” Baekhyun answered quietly. When he noticed Chanyeol flinch, he quickly added, “Don’t worry. She died happy, I’m sure of it. You helped her a lot, you know, even if you didn’t know her. She was your biggest fan, after all,” he said with a wistful smile.

 _No one dies happy_ , Chanyeol wanted to say, but decided against it, thinking that it wasn’t the most appropriate answer.

Cancer was what took her, Baekhyun said, and though Chanyeol lost his father the same way, he couldn’t say that he shared the same affection for him like Baekhyun had for his mother. Chanyeol was probably a horrible person for thinking that his father got what he deserved, but that was what he truly felt. The world was a better place without him, at least for Chanyeol. Maybe for his mom, too.

“Well, that was my life before I ended up in KBC,” Baekhyun said. “If you want to go further back, then I’m sorry to break it to you that I don’t remember much about my college life,” he let out a half-hearted chuckle.

“Why not?” Chanyeol asked. “Hated college?”

Baekhyun smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes like it did earlier. “Not really. I just really don’t remember much. Weird, right? I’m pretty sure it was fun, though. I’m usually a fun person to be with.”

Chanyeol had no doubt about that, not with the way Baekhyun ran his mouth.

Just as he was about to ask more about him, Minho returned to their table with a tray filled with two plates of pan-seared prawn sandwiches and two tall glasses of iced latte.

After thanking Minho, Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol and said, “Okay, enough storytelling for today, Mr. Park. I might need to ration the stories just in case we go on another lunch date.”

Chanyeol chuckled at that, ignoring the way his heart did backflips at Baekhyun’s mention of the word date (and failing, as all his mind was thinking about right now was _date date date_ ).

—

Chanyeol wasn’t expecting to hear from Jongdae so soon after their previous phone call as researching and running a background check on a person wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world, so he was surprised when his phone rang, bearing the name _Prof. Kim_ on the caller ID on Thursday afternoon.

“Hey, Jongdae. What’s up? Did you find something?”

Chanyeol was stuck in his apartment watching cars pass by from his window because he ‘wasn’t allowed’ to visit and annoy Kyungsoo (and _maybe_ keep an eye on Baekhyun) as they were shooting an important episode off-site today and Kyungsoo was adamant about Chanyeol leaving him alone while they were working.

“Yes,” Jongdae said from the other line. “I was Googling Baekhyun the other day, waiting to see if I could find something he wrote like fanfiction or something, but unfortunately I didn’t find any. However, just as I was about to give up on the third or fourth page, I found a link to his Rochefort student profile.”

Rochefort? But didn’t Baekhyun say that he went to college in Rousseau? Was he lying?

“That isn’t right,” Chanyeol insisted. “He said that he attended college in Rousseau.”

“Well, that would make some sense, since it says here that he only attended Rochefort for three years. He might have transferred to Rousseau for his fourth year, but that’s weird. Why would he transfer universities when he was one year from graduating?”

Chanyeol wasn’t sure how this information helped his cause. “Whatever the case, what does this have to do with my narrator problem?”

“Jeez, someone’s feisty today. Kyungsoo’s personality’s finally rubbing off on you, huh?” Jongdae remarked. “It doesn’t say much, I’ll admit that, but isn’t it puzzling to you how such a young kid could have written a story that’s oddly accurate about your life? You didn’t know him before Kyungsoo mentioned him, right?”

“Yes, but… you don’t have to be a published author to write a story.”

“I know, Chanyeol. I know everything about writing,” Jongdae said. Although Chanyeol couldn’t see him, he was sure that Jongdae rolled his eyes as he said that, judging from the tone of his voice. “But what makes this kid so special that a story he’s written would affect reality? In fact, it _is_ reality. That’s creepy.”

Chanyeol couldn’t agree more. “What do we do now?”

“I’m going to talk to the professors Baekhyun had while he was studying here. They might help in shedding some light over this mystery. What about you? How’s the plot coming along? Has the narrator said anything important recently?”

Now that Chanyeol thought about it, he didn’t hear the narrator at all yesterday. That was odd, given that the voice narrated at least one paragraph each day. Just as he was about to mention this to Jongdae, he heard it again.

_Chanyeol was bored._

“Shit, Jongdae, it’s saying something right now.”

“What’s it saying?”

_He was never good at being idle for too long, not the best at keeping still, his body always itching to do something—anything at all. His mind traveled way too far for his own good, and to distract him from his never-ending thoughts, he used acting and work as an escape from his own perilous thinking._

“Chanyeol? Are you there?”

“Shut up for a moment.”

_Now that he didn’t have that to sidetrack him, his mind was free to wander into all the things he would rather not think about. One of those being the loquacious little man his friend introduced to him recently, and the way his lungs had a hard time functioning whenever he was with him. Oh, what a funny little thing love was._

Love? What the hell? Was the narrator—Baekhyun—talking about… himself?

_What was even funnier was the timing of everything. As he was having an internal battle with himself, thinking whether or not he was falling for the boy (hint: he was, which was odd, but not impossible; maybe this was how that tricky little thing called love at first sight worked) he barely knew, his phone registered an incoming phone call from the man himself._

 True enough, Chanyeol’s phone rang, a call from an unlisted number. Of course he already knew who it was, no thanks to the stupid narration.

“Jongdae, I might need to call you back,” he said amidst the professor’s protests, ending the call with him and answering the incoming one instead.

_With a shaky thumb, he pressed answer._

“H-hello?”

“Hey, Mr. Park,” Baekhyun’s bubbly voice resonated through the speaker. “Boss wants to invite you for drinks tonight. He’s busy at the moment, so he asked me to call you. I hope you don’t mind him giving your number to me.”

Chanyeol didn’t mind at all. “Uh… yeah, sure,” he stammered. “Just text me where. What are you guys doing right now?”

“Well, we were supposed to be shooting, but we took an unexpected break. Boss is yelling at the junior writers as we speak, but even so, I think he’s in a pretty good mood since he wants to treat us to drinks tonight.”

“That’s Kyungsoo for you,” he chuckled. “Okay, then. See you later.”

“See you later, Mr. Park.”

_When the phone call ended, Chanyeol was in an infinitely better mood than he was in before he answered him. It was inexplicable, how such a short conversation with that boy managed to lift Chanyeol’s spirits, and despite his mind’s objections, his heart couldn’t help but feel much more… alive. Chanyeol was just barely treading the waters, but at the same time, he was already in so deep._

Chanyeol hadn’t been to The Stream since he was in college, and for all he knew, so did Kyungsoo, and so one could only imagine the surprise and confusion that he felt when his best friend’s assistant told him that that was where they would be drinking tonight.

There were two reasons why Kyungsoo’s odd choice for a bar was a revelation. First, Chanyeol didn’t expect The Stream to still be open after all these years, given that the lifespan of pubs around Hiswood was usually short-lived because of the rowdiness and carelessness of the college kids that went there to drink away their sorrows away caused by withering GPAs, broken hearts, overpriced parking fees—who knew? Everyone had their reasons for wanting to get wasted.

Second was the college kids themselves. That was pretty self-explanatory.

It’s not that Chanyeol loathed them since he, of course, was once a university student himself. It was just that he and Kyungsoo were well into their thirties and he didn’t feel like it was appropriate for their age to drink where twenty-somethings went to play hooky. More than that, the risk of him being recognized was higher.

Baekhyun, contrarily, fit in quite well with the crowd, which was understandable since it hasn’t been a long time since the kid got out of college. Chanyeol thought that he probably still had the liver of a university student whereas him and Kyungsoo… not so much. Sometimes he could literally feel his body hating him for ingesting alcohol.

“You look good tonight, Mr. Park,” Baekhyun complimented as they took their seats at the far end of the balcony.

Chanyeol felt stupid for blushing at that because he knew for a fact that he did not look good tonight. He dressed down as possibly as he could—black fitted shirt, denim shorts that stopped at his knees, a baseball cap that matched the color of his tee, and simple white sneakers—since Minseok had advised him to lay low for a while and it wasn’t a good idea for someone like him to draw attention to himself in a place like this.

He was well-loved as an actor, sure, but there are still people out there who would love to see him get caught up in anything that remotely resembled a scandal. He hasn’t had one of those, and he definitely didn’t want to break that record tonight.

“Thanks, kid. You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo began as he eyed the bar menu, “To which should we get wasted on tonight?”

Chanyeol snatched the menu away from him as he knew they would be ready to order in about ten years if Kyungsoo was the one deciding. “You’re planning on getting wasted? Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“We got the day off tomorrow,” Baekhyun said.

“Huh. Must feel nice.”

Kyungsoo scoffed from beside Chanyeol. “Yeol, you got the day off yesterday. You had the day off today. You still have a day off tomorrow. You know what feels nicer? Not waking up for work everyday and still not getting worried about your bank account going below balance.”

“I told you to stop making the jobless jokes,” Chanyeol rolled his eyes.

Before Kyungsoo could say anything, Chanyeol called over a waiter and ordered six shots of tequila, a bucket of beer, and two plates of nachos—their usual course on a night out.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Park,” Baekhyun hesitated for a moment, but continued anyway, “Why are you on hiatus right now?”

Chanyeol and Kyungsoo shared a look.

When it took too long for Chanyeol to answer, Kyungsoo replied for him. “It’s kind of complicated, Baek. Yeol doesn’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

“Oh. Sorry for asking.”

Before the situation could get even more awkward, the waiter came back with their food and drinks. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo quickly downed their first shots of tequila as they always did, temporarily forgetting that they had someone else with them. Baekhyun followed their example reluctantly, Chanyeol noticing the kid wincing as he swallowed the liquor down.

“You a lightweight, Baek?” Chanyeol asked with a small smirk.

Baekhyun _aaahed_ after taking the shot, his face contorting in what looked like disgust. Tequila was never meant to taste pleasant, anyway. “No, it’s just… I haven’t drank in a long time. And I always thought that Cuervo tasted like piss.”

“Soo and I drank here because Cuervo shots were cheaper for some reason,” Chanyeol laughed.

“You seem to know the place quite well. I’m guessing the two of you went to Rochefort in college?”

“Yeol and I attended UB, actually. We just like drinking here because all the other universities glorified parties on Levett Avenue. You know, we wanted to be cool and all,” Kyungsoo answered. Pointing to himself, he said, “I majored in filmmaking. Chanyeol here went to the prestigious UB College of Theatre Arts.”

Chanyeol smiled despite rolling his eyes. “UB Film isn’t exactly an easy college to get into as well. Stop being fake humble,” he teased.

“Wow. University of Béliveau,” Baekhyun sighed in awe. “That’s one of the best universities in the country.”

“I _barely_ passed,” Chanyeol admitted. “I was already acting then, and I had a hard time keeping up with school. I think I only graduated because I did well in my majors. My minors though… that’s a different story.” He couldn’t help but laugh at how happy-go-lucky he was back in college.

“Here’s to barely passing!” Kyungsoo shouted as he raised his second tequila shot, Chanyeol and Baekhyun obliging with the toast. Laughter and the sound of glasses clinking followed.

While Kyungsoo and Chanyeol had no problem drinking, Baekhyun had to shut his eyes tight once again as he forced the alcohol down his throat.

Chanyeol chuckled at the kid’s inexperience. Turning to Kyungsoo, he asked, “So, is there any reason at all why we’re drinking here at The Stream? It’s been like a decade since we last came here.”

“Dunno. Felt nostalgic,” he shrugged, but Chanyeol could see a sadness in his eyes that wouldn’t be obvious to any other person. He was Kyungsoo’s best friend for a reason.

Chanyeol sighed. “It’s about Yifan, isn’t it?”

And that was all it took for tears to pool up in Kyungsoo’s eyes. He _rarely_ showed this side of him to Chanyeol—much more to anyone else, and if he was crying in front of Baekhyun, a person he barely knew, then something must be terribly wrong.

Chanyeol had his guesses, and Kyungsoo confirmed those suspicions when he looked up Yifan on Instagram and clicked on a post that looked a lot like a wedding photo. The picture was in black in white, but despite the lack of color, there was no denying the pure happiness in Yifan’s eyes as he lifted his bride’s veil, captured frozen in motion.

The man hardly ever smiled whenever Chanyeol saw him before, so now it felt weird for Chanyeol to see Yifan’s teeth as he beamed from ear to ear.

Chanyeol handed back Kyungsoo’s phone. “I thought the two of you ended on good terms?”

“We did,” Kyungsoo sniffled. “But, fuck, I don’t know. It still hurts to see that the person you’ve mapped out your future ends up living those plans with someone else.”

Chanyeol was the last person on earth to understand how relationships worked, but somehow, he understood how his best friend was feeling.

Baekhyun didn’t know what to say as he probably had no idea who Yifan was, but he still wanted Kyungsoo to feel better. He wordlessly cracked open a bottle of beer and handed it to his boss—which Kyungsoo gulped up half in a matter of seconds—and then opened two more for himself and Chanyeol.

“Here’s to… crying over things that hurt?” Baekhyun said hesitantly, and despite it being the lousiest toast anyone has ever made, Kyungsoo laughed at it.

“To crying,” Kyungsoo chuckled.

The rest of the night was spent just like that: laughing, sharing dumb stories from college, crying (Kyungsoo, mostly), and feeling lighter as the beer made its way into their bloodstreams.

Chanyeol forgot how amazing this felt like—getting intoxicated under the clear night sky, a cold breeze brushing over his face to keep him awake with two friends that stupidly laughed at anything because everything was funnier when you were tipsy.

Two more buckets of beer later, Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were undeniably drunk. Chanyeol was almost there, though he willed himself to stay sober enough because someone had to.

He excused himself to pee and when he came back, the two fools were now sleeping with their heads down on the table while they were seated. Chanyeol was strong enough to drag one drunk friend, but two? He was fucked.

Chanyeol slapped Kyungsoo on his arm as hard as he could. “Soo, wake the fuck up. I know you’re not a light drinker, so drag your ass up and let’s get Baekhyun home.” Kyungsoo didn’t even move.

Now panicking, Chanyeol paced back and forth and weighed his options.

He could take the two of them in a cab to Kyungsoo’s house, but that was way too far from here, and even though he loved his best friend, he didn’t want to shell out hundreds just for a single taxi ride. Besides, taking a cab at this hour was sketchy, especially on Levett Avenue.

He could call Sehun, but he doubted that his driver would even answer. For all he knew, Sehun was probably at some club getting wasted himself. He _almost_ dialed Junmyeon’s number, but when he was about to press call, his pride got the best of him. Maybe a little bit of shame was in the mix too, since he felt like it was unfair to ask for a favor from his manager when they haven’t really settled their previous misunderstanding yet.

Chanyeol sighed as he fished out his phone from his pocket. He hoped that the person he was about to call would answer because if not… He groaned. _Please pick up_ , he said to himself.

Jongdae answered on the fifth ring.

“Chanyeol? Why are you calling so late? Did something happen?” The professor’s voice resonated through the speaker.

“Did I wake you?”

“No, I was just grading write-ups,” Jongdae replied. “Is there something wrong?”

“Do you live near Rochefort?”

“Yeah, just a few minutes away from campus. Why?”

Chanyeol sighed. “I need your help.”

 

When Jongdae arrived, he was welcomed with the sight of Baekhyun laughing at Kyungsoo while the latter retched out everything he drank for the night with Chanyeol silently soothing his hand over his friend’s back. The only good thing that came out of it all was Kyungsoo sobering up a little thanks to the unfashionable exit of the alcohol in his system.

“Jesus fuck, Soo,” Jongdae cursed as he made his way to the bunch. “I never took you for a puker. Forgot how to pace yourself?”

With one last spit, Kyungsoo turned and glared at the newcomer. “Fuck you.”

“Hey, don’t be mean,” Chanyeol chastised him. “He’s our ride home.”

Jongdae just waved it off. He probably had dealt with worse drunks in his life. “S’okay. I’m used to him being all rude when he’s had alcohol. Let me guess, it was whiskey.”

“Tequila, actually,” Baekhyun giggled from where he was sitting in the corner. If the situation was a whole lot different, Chanyeol would’ve found it cute. “And beer. And nachos.”

“I can definitely see the nachos,” Jongdae remarked, his face blank as he stared at the mess Kyungsoo made. He suddenly froze when he realized that he didn’t recognize the voice that just spoke. Slowly, he turned his body towards Baekhyun’s corner. “Chanyeol, is that…”

“Yes,” Chanyeol didn’t even let him finish his sentence. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Let’s just get these two home.”

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were definitely heavier than they looked. Jongdae almost fell face-first into the ground along with Kyungsoo when the latter tripped over a rock while he had his arm slung around Jongdae’s shoulder to help him walk. Baekhyun was slightly more cooperative with Chanyeol, but it was hard nonetheless.

Eventually, Jongdae and Chanyeol managed to hurl them into the back seat of the professor’s white Nissan Rogue. Jongdae was muttering something about promising to kill them if they puked on his upholstery as he climbed into the driver’s seat while Chanyeol took shotgun.

“Kyungsoo’s house is quite a drive from here, so I think it’s better if we drop off the kid first,” Jongdae said, adjusting his rearview mirror. “Do you know where he lives?”

“No, but… Wait. You’ve been to Soo’s before?”

Jongdae rolled his eyes. “Yes, Chanyeol. How shocking,” he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Let’s just get this over with. It’s 3 fucking a.m. and I still have a couple of papers to grade, so go ask the kid where he lives so we can all go our separate ways.”

Chanyeol turned around towards the backseat only to see Baekhyun drooling against the window. He hoped that Jongdae couldn’t see what was happening. He gently tapped the kid’s cheek in an effort to wake him up, but was met with a slap in the arm and a scowl from him instead.

“Baek,” he tapped a little harder. “We need to take you home, but we don’t know where you live.”

Baekhyun scratched at his neck and mumbled incoherently, “Mmdfkhgvernierdhkfhhng.”

“Vernier?” Jongdae asked from the driver’s seat, to which Baekhyun faintly nodded. How Jongdae understood that was beyond Chanyeol’s mental capability. “That’s not too far from here. Okay, let’s go.”

The drive to Baekhyun’s house was silent, save for the synchronized snoring of the two inebriated oafs in the backseat. Jongdae yawned a couple of times during the trip, causing guilt to gnaw on Chanyeol’s chest for bothering him so late on a weeknight.

“Sorry, Jongdae,” Chanyeol apologized sheepishly. “I didn’t know who else to call. My driver’s off-duty and I’m not really good with my manager right now and—”

“Don’t mention it,” Jongdae cut him off. “I’m glad you called me.”

Chanyeol blinked in surprise. “Why?”

Jongdae slightly looked back to catch a glimpse of Kyungsoo, who was still incapacitated despite retching out a considerable amount of liquor earlier. A pensive smile played along his lips, and Chanyeol understood in a flash what that look meant.

“You did it for Kyungsoo,” he said quietly. Jongdae nodded. “What happened between the two of you? He never mentioned you to me at all. If I’m going to be honest, it actually offended me because he’s my best friend and he usually tells me stuff about his love life.”

Jongdae chuckled softly. “We weren’t in a relationship, if that’s what you’re asking. It was just how he said it was when we were in that coffee shop: there was nothing to mention. It hurt when he said that, but it was the truth.”

“If it truly was nothing, you wouldn’t be dashing to a bar in the dead of night to drive him home,” Chanyeol pointed out.

“It was nothing for him, but it was something for me,” Jongdae replied. “But I can’t hold that against him. It was supposed to be just a casual… arrangement,” he said, but Chanyeol somehow knew that what he really meant to say was casual sex. “It’s not his fault that I wanted more from him when he told me from the beginning that he wasn’t looking for anything serious.”

Chanyeol nodded in understanding. “How did Yifan get in the picture them? You seemed to hate every fiber of his being the last time we talked about him.”

Jongdae smiled, but it was a sad one. “I hated him because he was the guy that Soo wanted to be serious with. Not me. I felt cheated, though I didn’t have the right to be. But then I realized, just recently, actually, that it’s not his fault that he didn’t love me.”

“And you still care about him.”

“Of course,” the professor shrugged. “You can’t unlove someone in the blink of an eye, you know. It’s a continuous effort. It takes months, sometimes years, and I’m okay with that. I’m just gonna care until I don’t feel the need to anymore. When that day comes, I know I’ll be over him.”

Chanyeol remained silent after that and looked out the window, taking in the sight of blurred trees and buildings and street signs as they drove away from Levett Avenue. He wondered if he would ever love someone like that—caring wholeheartedly but not expecting anything in return. It sounded a lot like martyrdom to him, but maybe that was just what he thought now because he hasn’t been in love yet.

Baekhyun groaned from the back.

 _What timing_ , Chanyeol thought. Maybe the universe was onto something.

“We’re almost to Vernier, kid,” Jongdae said when he noticed Baekhyun stirring. “What does your house look like?”

“Small blue one,” Baekhyun replied in a low, raspy voice that prickled the skin on Chanyeol’s neck. He still sounded drunk, though. “White picket fence. Yellow door. Hard to miss.”

When they arrived in the neighborhood, Jongdae had to drive slowly while Chanyeol kept an eye out for the house that Baekhyun described. He understood why the kid said his house would be hard to miss—every other home was either painted white or was too big for Baekhyun’s description.

They reached the end of the street, and just when they thought that Baekhyun might be messing with them, Chanyeol saw it: a small cornflower blue bungalow that looked like it could house a family of three—no more, no less—surrounded by a white picket fence that appeared terribly neglected, rust staining the peeling paint. Like Baekhyun had described, the color of the front door was that of the sun, unbelievably bright that it seemed glowing even at quarter to four in the morning.

“Hey, kid. We’re here,” Jongdae said as he parked in front of the house. Baekhyun’s only response was snoring. “Shit, he’s fallen asleep again.” Jongdae looked at his wristwatch and then at Chanyeol. “Chanyeol…”

“Fine,” he conceded before Jongdae could even say anything else, unbuckling his seatbelt and going out of the car to fetch Baekhyun from the backseat. He lightly slapped the kid in hopes of him waking up, but to no avail. He sighed.

“I’ll come get you back after I’ve finished dropping Soo off,” Jongdae offered.

Chanyeol shook his head as he hung Baekhyun’s arm on his shoulder to support his weight, which was multiplied by what seemed like a hundred times because of his insobriety. “It’s too far. Just go home. I’ll sleep here tonight,” he said, glancing at the house behind him. Baekhyun’s house. “I’ll take the couch or something.”

“You sure?”

“Well, it doesn’t look like we have a lot of options,” he tried to shrug but failed, the kid’s dead weight pulling down his body. Baekhyun was _so so_ heavy.

Jongdae nodded silently and gave Chanyeol a small smile before driving off.

“Why did they leave you here?” Baekhyun asked uninhibitedly. He still spoke somewhat clearly, but the haze in his eyes couldn’t fool Chanyeol. The kid’s mind was probably a million light-years from Earth, as far as Chanyeol was concerned.

Chanyeol ignored his question. “Where are your keys, Baek?”

“Hmm, I dunno. My pockets?” He hummed, burying his face further into Chanyeol’s neck. Chanyeol hoped that Baekhyun was drunk enough not to feel the fierce thudding of his heartbeat.

Wanting to get this over and done with, Chanyeol quickly patted Baekhyun’s pants down in search for a sign of his house keys, finding them in one of the kid’s back pockets. _This should be considered an Olympic sport_ , Chanyeol said in his mind as he attempted to slot the key into the doorknob while also keeping Baekhyun from falling.

After a few more tries, he finally managed to get them inside the house. Baekhyun unhooked his arm around Chanyeol’s shoulder and began walking wobbly towards the hall past the small kitchen, probably to his room.

Chanyeol followed silently behind him just in case he trips over something or himself and smashes his face on the floor. Thankfully, the kid managed to get to his room unscathed without Chanyeol needing to support him.

Baekhyun plopped down on his bed unceremoniously, shoes and all, and began snoring as soon as his head hit the mattress, making Chanyeol chuckle a little. At least the kid was just a sleepy drunk rather than anything else.

He was about to leave the room and close the door behind him when something made him look back, as if his body was telling him that his job wasn’t done yet. _The kid’s going to get cold if he sleeps like that_ , his conscience guilt tripped him. His heart joined in: _don’t you think it’s uncomfortable to sleep with your shoes on?_

Sighing, Chanyeol made his way towards Baekhyun to discard his white Chuck Taylors and cover him with a blanket. He was doing this for his own peace of mind because he was a good person like that, he kept saying to himself. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

But something in his chest burned as he looked at Baekhyun while he slept, tracing every curve of his face with his eyes. He looked so soft and serene, beautiful in the most unpretentious way, and Chanyeol suddenly found it hard to breathe. His gaze then fell on Baekhyun’s lips, pink and perpetually pouted, and he swallowed thickly, his throat suddenly feeling dry. He quickly turned towards the door to stop other unwelcome thoughts from crossing his mind.

“Thank you, Mr. Park,” Baekhyun suddenly whispered, making Chanyeol stop in his tracks. He looked back to see if the kid was awake, only to see that he still had his eyes closed.

“For what?” He asked, mostly just to see if Baekhyun would answer.

“For taking care of me,” the kid replied as he rolled over to his other side. “And for being so nice. And for being cute. Your ears are cute, too.”

The kid was definitely still drunk, but Chanyeol caught himself smiling anyway.

—

Chanyeol hanging around KBC every day became normal. No one batted an eyelash when he tailed Kyungsoo as the screenwriter clocked in for work daily. Well, except for Kyungsoo himself, until he got sick of asking Chanyeol why he was droning around HQ like an annoying fly that just won’t go away no matter how many times you swapped at it. Kyungsoo was already well-aware that Chanyeol was there for Baekhyun anyway.

Chanyeol knew that the reason that no one was making him leave was because he was good friends with Kibum, one of the executive producers of the show who also happened to be heir apparent to KBC—the Kim Broadcasting Company. He was practically untouchable; even Kyungsoo couldn’t shoo him away as much as his best friend would like to drag Chanyeol out of the building himself.

To Chanyeol’s credit, he usually never bothered anyone from the studio save for Kyungsoo and Baekhyun. He even helped out sometimes when his best friend needed a fresh perspective on a certain concept that they were planning to try out for the show or when he offered a hand when Baekhyun seemed like he needed assistance on mountains and mountains of paperwork.

The only problem was that Baekhyun was avoiding him.

It was subtle, but Chanyeol could tell how Baekhyun avoided his gaze or didn’t talk to him unless it was absolutely necessary. They would still go and have lunch together whenever Kyungsoo would need to take a working lunch and ask his assistant to grab some takeout for him, but their conversations weren’t as lively as they first were.

As he sat in the sofa chair inside Kyungsoo’s office and looked at Baekhyun through the blinds—a thing that also became routine now—he wondered about what he could have possibly done wrong.

Now that he thought about it, Baekhyun started evading him after their night out at The Stream weeks ago, when he needed to take the kid home for being too drunk to manage on his own. Chanyeol had no idea what he did to deserve the cold shoulder from him. If he remembered correctly, Baekhyun thanked him for taking care of him and… some other things. About being nice. About being cute. About his ears being cute.

He didn’t know why Baekhyun felt the need to thank him for those last two things, but he was glad for the compliments. Actually, he was more than glad; every time he thought about that, his heart would feel fuzzy and his mind lightheaded—the buzz that people felt when they were half-drunk, the addicting sensation that made them want to drink again and again. Perhaps Baekhyun was Chanyeol’s version of a Cuervo shot, the former having way more impact than tequila.

“Your ears are doing that thing again,” Kyungsoo commented.

Chanyeol instinctively covered his ears. “Doing what?”

“Blushing like they have a mind of their own. It’s creepy _and_ endearing at the same time,” he said. “Are they doing that because of Baekhyun? God, you’re gross. You two did something that night at his house, didn’t you?”

“No,” Chanyeol denied right away. “If we did, he wouldn’t be avoiding me like the plague.”

“Huh. So you wanted something to happen.”

“That wasn’t—” Chanyeol stopped himself to take a deep breath. “That’s not the point. The point is, he’s avoiding me. Why is he avoiding me? I didn’t even do anything.”

Kyungsoo deadpanned, “Maybe he’s getting annoyed with you stalking him like a weirdo. That’s just what I think, though. Try asking the kid.”

Chanyeol huffed and continued sulking in the corner.

“Seriously though, why are you always here?” Kyungsoo asked. “It’s not like you’re getting paid by Kibum or anything for staying here and occasionally helping out.” He paused. “Wait, are you? Are you getting fatter paychecks than me? I’m going to be so pissed if you say yes.”

“What? No!” He refuted. “It’s for… research purposes.”

Kyungsoo scoffed. “You graduated from college and submitted your thesis more than a decade ago. You literally have no reason to be doing research methodologies at this age.”

“I just noticed something a few days ago,” Chanyeol explained. “I wanted to see if I was right.”

“Right about what?”

Chanyeol heaved a deep sigh. “I hear the narrator less and less these days. At first I thought that I wasn’t just paying attention to it, but then I realized that it started happening when I began hanging around here more often, when I’m with Baekhyun.”

“Hmm. That’s weird,” Kyungsoo admitted. “Try talking it over with Jongdae, see what he has to say.” Chanyeol nodded and then focused his attention back on Baekhyun. “And also, for fuck’s sake, just talk to the kid, see if you’ve pissed him off or something. You look pathetic peering at him through my windows like he’s some toy your mom refused to buy you. Jesus.”

 

Chanyeol was going to take Kyungsoo’s advice and try to confront Baekhyun in some way, but the kid disappeared from his desk as soon as his shift was over without even saying goodbye to his boss, which he usually did before he clocked out of work.

Chanyeol’s heart sank to his feet when he realized that Baekhyun probably did that to avoid him.

He was on the brink of going insane. He normally hated passive-aggressive behavior, but for some reason, he couldn’t get himself to hate the kid. Well, there _was_ a reason: Baekhyun was nothing but nice and polite to him—even as the narrator, except for the fact that he was writing Chanyeol’s story as a tragedy. What had he done for Baekhyun to suddenly avert him as much as he could?

All that was in Chanyeol’s mind as he drove out of KBC’s basement parking was _Baekhyun Baekhyun Baekhyun_ and as if he had the power to summon things, or people, out of sheer will, Baekhyun materialized from the sidewalk as Chanyeol’s car passed by. He was probably headed for the bus station.

Matching Baekhyun’s pace, Chanyeol lowered the passenger side window and called out, “Hey Baek!”

Chanyeol’s sudden appearance startled him, making him stop in his tracks. “Mr. Park?”

“Do you want a ride home?” Chanyeol offered. “The bus is a nightmare at this hour. Vernier is on the way to my apartment. I’d be happy to give you a lift.”

Baekhyun bit his lip, a habit that Chanyeol noticed he did when he was either thinking or was nervous. “I don’t want to impose,” he smiled kindly, though his eyes were sad. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m okay with commuting home.”

“Please, Baek. I insist,” Chanyeol said. “Take it as an apology for whatever I did for you to avoid me. It’s the least I could do.”

“Oh, no! You didn’t do anything,” Baekhyun said, waving his hands in front of him. “I’m just… going through some things right now. I’m sorry if you think that I was avoiding you. I wasn’t doing it on purpose, I swear,” he apologized as he looked down at his feet, his lips slightly pouting. Does everything he does have to be cute like it was his job?

Chanyeol could sense that the kid was somewhat telling the truth, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Smiling, he said, “Well, if that’s the case, you have to prove it. Let me drive you home.”

Baekhyun sighed, but eventually let himself inside the car.

 The drive was incredibly awkward, the atmosphere within the vehicle thick with strange tension. With the quick glances Chanyeol managed to steal from Baekhyun’s side, he saw that the kid’s lips were now a shade deeper from being constantly gnawed at. He deduced that Baekhyun was probably uncomfortable, and he winced inwardly for forcing him to drive him home. _Great_ , Chanyeol thought. _I have one more thing to apologize for._

Even with the stereo on, the silence was deafening. Baekhyun was fun, talkative. He wasn’t the type to shrink along with the mood; he was usually the one setting its pace. Chanyeol felt so guilty even without knowing exactly what to be guilty about. Why wouldn’t the kid just talk to him?

But then again, Chanyeol didn’t have the guts to confront him about it, either. He was normally an honest, straightforward person, but when it came to Baekhyun, words failed to form in his mouth. It was like all his strength and bravery were being sucked from him when he felt like he did Baekhyun wrong, a kryptonite of some sort.

Finally, they arrived at the same cornflower blue house where Chanyeol had slept and looked after Baekhyun that night. It felt like an eternity ago, with the stark contrast of the mood between that night and this.

Baekhyun slowly unbuckled his seatbelt. “Thank you for the ride, Mr. Park. Have a safe drive home. See you tomorrow at HQ,” he said with a small smile.

Before the very last surge of courage left his body, Chanyeol reached and softly grabbed Baekhyun’s wrist to stop him from leaving the car. “Wait,” he pleaded. “I know something’s wrong. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. I’ve already forced you this drive home and I don’t want to force anything else out of you. Just… hear me out okay?”

Baekhyun just stared at him, confusion settling in his eyes.

“Whatever it was, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Just… can you please start talking to me again? I’m going nuts. Really, I—”

“Mr. Park,” Baekhyun cut him off and smiled, resting a delicate hand over Chanyeol’s gentle grip on his other wrist. “Do you want to come inside for a bit? I don’t cook as nicely as Kyungsoo, but I make pretty mean chicken wings. I also have beer to wash it down. Classic combo.”

Chanyeol could finally feel his heart beating again. “I’d love to.”

 

While Baekhyun prepared dinner in the kitchen, Chanyeol went to have a look around the house, something that he didn’t have the opportunity to do the last time he was here as he was on drunk friend patrol duty that night.

Now that he saw it for himself, he realized that Baekhyun wasn’t kidding when he said that Chanyeol’s face was all over his mom’s house. A fraction of the living room wall was dedicated to pictures and newspaper clippings of him: pictures of him receiving awards, news about record-breaking ratings of his drama, even photos of him when he went to support his actor friends during VIP screenings of their films.

It should have felt weird, but it didn’t. Instead, Chanyeol felt warm inside because in all his years as an actor, he had never seen the memorabilia of him that people kept for his own eyes, how he was greatly appreciated for his art. More than that, he felt old. Old in a sense that a portion of the demographic of the people that supported him belonged to those even older than him. He truly wasn’t getting any younger.

As he moved towards the television set, he saw a shelf filled with VHS tapes (he never imagined that he would see one again in the year of our Lord, two thousand and eighteen) of his old dramas and films, mostly from his teenage years when he played minor roles like the son or a younger brother of the main character. It was like a trip down memory lane.

“Nice collection,” he remarked.

Baekhyun’s laughter resonated from the kitchen. “Obviously, they aren’t mine. Mom really liked you. Like a lot. I actually suspected that you were her true son and not me because of all her doting on you.”

“Well, I can’t blame her. I was a cute kid. Unlike someone here.”

“Hey, I’m cute!” Baekhyun protested, peeking from the wall that only slightly separated the kitchen and the living room, sporting his signature pout. It took every ounce of Chanyeol’s self-control to say, _Yes. Yes, you’re cute. Now stop pouting._

Chanyeol left the living room and sat himself down on the dining table to watch Baekhyun cook.

Baekhyun moved gracefully inside the kitchen, contrary to his claim that he wasn’t a good cook. He didn’t even flinch from the oil bubbling in the deep fryer as he dropped chops of chicken wings in it. Fearless. Chanyeol would’ve picked up a pan cover to use as a shield of some sort against the sputtering oil like it was hand-to-hand combat if he was the one doing the cooking right now.

Chanyeol got so used to everyone else calling Baekhyun ‘kid’ that he couldn’t help but pick up on the nickname himself—and for good reason, as Baekhyun was a decade younger than him—that he forgot for a split second how mature he truly was. If he needed someone to fry chicken to save his life, Chanyeol would probably ask Baekhyun to do it. As for writing stories, though… that was another topic.

Which reminded him…

“Baek, did you take up literature in college?”

“Sort of,” he answered. “Creative writing.”

“At a university in Rousseau, right?”

Baekhyun tore a paper towel from the dispenser and placed them on a plate, preparing to take the wings out of the fryer. “Yeah. Just for my last year, though. This is going to sound _really_ weird, but I can’t remember where I spent my first three years in college.”

It was odd, indeed. Chanyeol tilted his head, “What do you mean you don’t remember? Aren’t there like records and stuff? Like in your CV?”

“Yes, but even after I find out, I still end up forgetting. Like short term memory loss or something. Hi, I’m Dory,” he said, playfully imitating the amnesiac cartoon character. “It’s on the tip of my tongue, though. Pretty sure it also starts with R. Huh. Might need to check my CV again soon. Thanks for reminding me.”

Chanyeol wanted to ask more, but decided against it. Baekhyun continued transferring freshly fried chicken wings onto the plate, his face now clouded with confusion. Chanyeol could tell that he was still trying to remember the college he attended before he moved to Rousseau.

Eager to change the topic, Chanyeol said, “Your house is nice. It has that mother’s touch.”

“Don’t all houses have a mother’s touch?”

“Not the one I grew up in,” Chanyeol stated. “Our house looked like the national library. There were literally books everywhere.”

Baekhyun’s smile was back. “Your parents liked to read?”

“Well, my father was a lawyer, so there’s that. Mom was a writer,” Chanyeol explained. “You could say their reading habits rubbed off on me.”

Baekhyun finally set the plate on the table, the chicken wings glistening under the light of the dining room. Chanyeol didn’t even realize he was hungry until the delectable smell of grease wafed through his nose, making his stomach rumble.

He was about to grab a piece when Baekhyun swatted his hand away. “Wait. I want to give you something before we eat,” he smiled. “It’s my favorite book of all time. I want you to read it. I mean, you probably have, but I still want you to read it.”

“What book is it?”

Instead of answering, Baekhyun made a beeline for his room, reemerging back into the dining room with a small blue paperback novel. With just one look, Chanyeol could tell that it had been read for a hundred times, the edges of the book curling up to the sides. Baekhyun handed it to him with two hands, a huge smile plastered on his face.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Chanyeol couldn’t help but chuckle. “I read this, like, in the twelfth grade.”

“I know,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “That’s why I had a disclaimer that you’ve probably read it. But you were in twelfth grade, when? Eighteen years ago? Jesus, you’re old.”

Chanyeol glared at his teasing. “Well, when you put it like that, you make me sound like I’m a living fossil. But I’ll read it anyway. Thank you.”

After dinner, as Baekhyun did the dishes, Chanyeol went back to the living room to snoop around some more, with Baekhyun’s permission, of course. He noticed a guitar resting against the wall in one corner, dust covering it. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

“Hey, Baek?” Chanyeol called out, Baekhyun loudly humming in response to let him know that he was listening. “Who played guitar in this house?”

“I did, back when I was a little younger, I suppose. Can’t exactly remember when,” he mused. “I don’t know how to play at all anymore, though.”

Chanyeol picked up the guitar, shaking years and years of dust off of it. He might have coughed once or twice, but when his fingers tightened around the frets, the familiar feeling of nylon and copper grazing his skin, everything else hardly mattered.

He sat down on the sofa and began plucking the strings with his right hand while the left held down chords, a soft melody beginning to float around the room. He extended the intro like how he preferred to play this song, and after a while, Baekhyun had to stop washing the dishes to watch him play, unbeknownst to him.

He started singing.

“ _Wise men say only fools rush in  
But I can’t help falling in love with you_.”

Baekhyun’s knees turned soft as Chanyeol’s deep, velvety voice resonated throughout the house. If dark chocolate had a sound, he was sure that Chanyeol’s singing was close to it.

“ _Shall I stay?_  
_Would it be a sin_  
 _If I can’t help falling in love with you?_ ”

Chanyeol let the words flow freely from his heart and out of his mouth. This has always been his favorite song to play on the guitar, but now it even became more special when he could feel Baekhyun coming closer and closer towards him even with his eyes closed.

“ _Like a river flows surely to the sea_  
_Darling so it goes_  
 _Some things are meant to be_.”

Chanyeol felt the space beside him on the sofa dip from the weight of someone sitting down. Baekhyun looked at him intently as he continued to sing, resting his chin against his hand as he propped his arm against the back of the couch.

“ _So take my hand, take my whole life too_  
_For I can’t help falling in love with you_  
 _For I can’t help falling in love with you_.”

When Chanyeol’s eyes opened, Baekhyun’s gaze was locked on him, tears brimming at the edges despite the smile on the boy’s face. He brushed a tear away just as it fell, his thumb gently stroking the apple of Baekhyun’s cheek. If Chanyeol had only known that this was how Baekhyun felt under his skin, he would’ve touched him sooner.

“This is exactly why I was keeping my distance from you,” Baekhyun whispered. Their faces were only a few inches from each other now, the only thing separating their bodies was the guitar. Chanyeol could feel Baekhyun’s breath fanning against his skin.

“What are you talking about?”

Baekhyun sniffled, leaning further into Chanyeol’s touch. “I had to stop being around you so much before I fell in so deep,” he laughed softly. “But you just _had_ to be stubborn and ruin everything, Mr. Park.”

Without removing his hand on Baekhyun’s face, Chanyeol gently set the guitar on the floor, and then ever so softly placed his lips on Baekhyun’s.

He could feel Baekhyun trembling slightly against him, lips frozen and unsure, but when he felt something wet and cold stain his own cheek, he realized that Baekhyun was tearing up some more. He placed his hand at the back of Baekhyun’s head, gently weaving his fingertips into the boy’s hair, as if to say, _I want this as much as you do. All you have to do is let go._

Baekhyun responded, his palms landing on Chanyeol’s chest as he let out a contented sigh in the split second that their mouths parted, Chanyeol taking this as an opportunity to deepen the kiss. Baekhyun’s sighs turned into muted whimpers and then quiet moans the longer his lips stayed connected with Chanyeol’s.

Chanyeol’s hands went down from the boy’s neck to his hips, urging him to climb on top of him and straddle his hips down onto the sofa. Grip firm on Baekhyun’s waist, he continued languidly kissing him, only taking very brief moments to stop and catch some air. Baekhyun was taking every ounce of oxygen from his lungs, but if this was what being breathless felt like, then he was okay with never getting to breathe again.

After what seemed like years, Baekhyun pulled away, resting his forehead against Chanyeol’s. “Weren’t you just singing about how only fools rush in? Aren’t we rushing in a bit?” He whispered.

“Weren’t you listening?” Chanyeol asked, a small smile forming on his lips. “I can’t help it,” he said, and then put his lips back to where they belonged—Baekhyun.


	3. The Ending

Jongdae has been staring at his computer for what seemed like an hour now, the webpage displaying the same Rochefort student profile he had been visiting again and again for the past weeks. _Byun Baekhyun. ID number 11241448. Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Creative Writing. Student from 2012 to 2015._ That was it.

Jongdae had been a professor at Rochefort for five years now, being hired around the time Baekhyun was a sophomore. He didn’t remember having the kid in one of his classes. He was sure of it; he had a good memory when it came to his students, and Baekhyun wasn’t a common name. He would have probably remembered it if he had already heard it somewhere.

Jongdae glanced at the time. It was half past nine, and the faculty room was nearly empty save for himself and Dr. Jun, a literary theory professor and one of the few colleagues that Jongdae had deep respect for. Something about the woman scared him, and he consciously tried not to get on her bad side.

“Burning the midnight oil? Well, the ten o’clock oil?” Dr. Jun joked as she walked past Jongdae’s desk, stopping for a moment to look at his desktop.

“I was just looking something up,” Jongdae said. “Have a safe trip home, Jihyun.”

But Dr. Jun inched closer to Jongdae’s table, her brows arching as she stared at the computer screen. “Hey, this kid looks familiar. Why are you looking at his student profile?”

“I know a professor from SPIA. He kept raving about this kid who was his student two years ago, turns out he studied here before transferring. I was just curious,” Jongdae said, trying his best not to sound like he was lying. He hoped that Dr. Jun wouldn’t see right through him.

Fortunately, she seemed to be only half-paying attention. “Saint Pierre Institute of Arts? That’s a long way from here,” she replied distractedly. “This kid looks _really_ familiar…”

“Do you know him?”

“Byun… I’m sure I’ve heard that name somewhere.” Dr. Jun thought for a moment. After a while, she exclaimed, “Ah! Baekbeom’s brother. That’s why he looked familiar.”

“Who’s that?” Jongdae asked.

“He was this really good student who graduated at the top of his class in 2012,” Dr. Jun explained. “I was his fiction writing techniques professor. Three years later, his brother also enlisted in my class. I had great expectations for the kid, and he didn’t disappoint. He disappeared after that semester, though. Never saw him again. I don’t think I saw him graduate, either. You said he transferred?”

“Yes. To Saint Pierre.”

“That’s good. At least he finished college. I wonder why he transferred,” she mused. “He was doing well enough here.”

Jongdae has been wondering the same thing for the past month. “Do you know what Baekbeom’s doing now?”

“Editor-in-chief of the Tricolor, the last I heard. The university keeps track of their successful alumni. You know, typical Rochefort pride,” she laughed. “Hey, if you want a sample of his brother’s work, I think I still have a copy of his final in FWT. It’s a novella.”

Dr. Jun made her way back to her desk, pulling out an old box atop the cabinets. She fished out book after book out of it until she finally found what she was looking for: a dark green hardbound book the size of a regular notebook.

“Why do you keep copies of your students’ finals?” Jongdae chuckled. “A waste of space, if you ask me.”

“I only keep the ones I gave a perfect 4.0 to. For future reference,” she replied. “If I hadn’t kept that, you wouldn’t be holding it right now. Be a little grateful.”

“I am,” Jongdae smiled. “Thanks, Jihyun. Drive safe.”

As soon as Dr. Jun was out of the faculty room, Jongdae’s smile faded. His heartbeat crawled up to his ears as he held up the book in his hand. Was this the story Chanyeol was living in right now?

With shaking hands, Jongdae turned to the first page.

—

Chanyeol woke up to the sound of Baekhyun softly giggling beside him.

Sunlight and Baekhyun’s smile—which were both equally blinding—seeped through the cracks of consciousness as he slowly opened his eyes, the beautiful face of his beautiful boyfriend the first thing coming into focus. Chanyeol thought that the mornings were better like this.

“Stop laughing at me,” Chanyeol complained sleepily as he pulled Baekhyun closer. “Wait. Why are you laughing?”

Baekhyun wriggled within his embrace, but made no real attempt to break away. “You were smiling while you were sleeping. It was so funny. You looked stupid.”

“You know, for a writer, you’re not really poetic,” he laughed. “Most people don’t use adjectives like funny or stupid when they describe their significant others smiling in their sleep. They use stuff like angelic or, at the very least, cute.”

“But it wasn’t the kind of smile that was cute. It was the kind of smile that was funny and stupid. I bet you were dreaming of something. What was it?” Baekhyun asked, tracing indistinct shapes on Chanyeol’s bare shoulder, just above the marks he planted there last night. Maybe they could go for another round this morning.

Chanyeol kissed Baekhyun’s forehead before answering. “I was thinking about you, actually.”

“All good things, I hope,” Baekhyun said as he looked up.

Chanyeol hummed in agreement. “You’re everything that’s good in my life.”

Baekhyun’s heart caught fire at that. He kissed Chanyeol breathlessly, climbing on top of him for more leverage. He could feel Chanyeol stiffening under him, but if Chanyeol wanted more, he didn’t do anything about it. Chanyeol’s hands remained on Baekhyun’s face, unlike how they usually traveled everywhere on Baekhyun’s body. Maybe he just wanted to bask in this moment of tender intimacy; Baekhyun was more than okay with that.

Everything about Chanyeol drove Baekhyun crazy—the warmth of his touch on his skin, the way his lips curved in a smile while he was kissing him, the feeling of his body perfectly molding into his like it was its second nature. It was just a little less than two months since that night when Chanyeol sang to him, and this was all just probably premature bliss, but Baekhyun couldn’t help but get ahead of himself and think that this was what he wanted to wake up to every day for the rest of his life.

He was getting by just fine before Chanyeol, but now he couldn’t imagine himself without him. Chanyeol was there when Baekhyun was still shaking away the remnants of sleep in his eyes, up until he fell asleep to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. Chanyeol was life’s little surprise to him.

There was a word for that, Baekhyun realized. _Serendipity_. It was an overused word, terribly cliché, but he couldn’t care less. Chanyeol could be made up of all the clichés in the world and it wouldn’t chase away the flock of butterflies that gathered in Baekhyun’s stomach whenever they had little moments like this, away from everyone else.

Unfortunately, their moment was disrupted by the sound of Baekhyun’s ringtone.

“Your phone’s a cockblock,” Chanyeol remarked as he pulled away from the kiss.

“We were just kissing.”

“It could’ve led to more if whoever’s calling you right now wasn’t a jerk.”

Baekhyun laughed, rolling over Chanyeol to pick up his phone from the bedside table. The name on the caller ID surprised him. He usually didn’t call him… unless something was wrong.

“Who is it?” Chanyeol asked as he sat up, kissing Baekhyun’s shoulder as he peeked over it to get a glimpse of his phone. “Baekbeom? Who’s that?”

Baekhyun swallowed nervously. “My brother.”

“You never told me you had a brother.”

“You never asked,” Baekhyun said. He couldn’t get his eyes off the screen, the phone ringing for a while now. “Can I… take this in the living room?”

Chanyeol nodded, “Of course. It must be something important.”

Baekhyun quickly put his boxers on and left the bedroom, the phone still ringing in his hand. Chanyeol wondered what it was about. Deciding that it was none of his business, he plopped back down on the mattress to continue his disrupted sleep, no thanks to Baekhyun’s laughter.

But he was wide awake now, his eyes refusing to get heavy no matter how soft and inviting his bed was. Baekhyun was to blame for that, too. His kisses woke Chanyeol up better than any amount of espresso shot. Baekhyun was better for his heart than caffeine, anyway.

As Chanyeol lay there, he thought about how the days were much brighter now that Baekhyun was an official fixture in his life. His apartment felt a little less empty and cold with Baekhyun in it, and even though he hadn't formally moved in with him yet, he was content with their little arrangement: Baekhyun’s house on weekdays, his apartment on weekends and Baekhyun’s days off. Maybe they could settle somewhere permanently in the near future, but for now, Chanyeol was happy with where they were in their relationship. He hadn’t been this happy in a long time; he didn’t want to ruin it by rushing it too fast.

His daydreaming was cut short with another ringtone, this time his own. He groaned inwardly as he reached for his phone underneath his pillow. _Prof. Kim is calling_ , his screen read.

Chanyeol’s heart dropped to his stomach.

Jongdae only ever called when he had developments regarding Chanyeol’s narrator problem, and Chanyeol didn’t want to deal with that right now, not when he hasn’t even heard the narrator in over a month.

Jongdae’s phone call seemed like a splash of cold water on his face —a wake-up call that none of this was permanent until further notice. He still had a problem to solve, and a big one at that.

He answered the call.

“Hi Jongdae,” Chanyeol said softly into the receiver. Something in his gut told him that whatever Jongdae was about to say, it was big. And bad. He hoped he was wrong.

“Chanyeol,” Jongdae began. The tone of the professor’s voice gave it all away. Chanyeol was right, after all. “Are you at home?”

“Yeah,” Chanyeol croaked. He wasn’t ready for whatever news Jongdae was about to bring. “I just woke up. Baekhyun’s here too.”

He could hear Jongdae sighing on the other line. “I’m with Kyungsoo. Can you meet us… as in right now? We have something important to tell you.”

“Can’t you just say it on the phone?” Chanyeol asked gently. Tears were beginning to sting his eyes. He already knew what this was about.

“No, Chanyeol. Sorry. We need to talk to you in person.”

Chanyeol heaved a deep sigh, sitting up on his bed once again to stop himself from crying. Baekhyun might burst in at any moment, and he didn’t want to worry him. After a few silent seconds, he said, “Okay.”

 

When Chanyeol arrived at Café Romulo, Jongdae and Kyungsoo were seated at the usual booth he and his best friend took whenever they ate here. As always, Minho greeted him with a smile as soon as he entered, though the smile didn’t quite reach the restaurant owner’s smile, as if sensing the tension from Chanyeol’s expression.

A green book rested on top of the table of the booth. Combined with Jongdae and Kyungsoo’s solemn expressions, Chanyeol understood that this was _the_ book. It was _his_ story. And he knew that they had read it. They knew the ending.

Chanyeol already knew what the story’s end would be, what he didn’t know was _how_. If he was going to be completely honest, he didn’t want to know. He thought that perhaps if he turned a blind eye to it, none of it would come true.

“Yeol,” Kyungsoo greeted with a sad smile as Chanyeol sat opposite them.

“Hey, Soo.”

“Sorry for making you come, Chanyeol,” Jongdae said. “But some things just can’t be simply discussed on the phone. This is very important.” Chanyeol somehow knew that this was the voice he used when he was Professor Kim, not Jongdae.

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol whispered. “I couldn’t avoid it even if I wanted to. Baekhyun’s also meeting his brother today, so I didn’t have to make an excuse to leave my apartment.”

“We know,” Kyungsoo said. “We’re the ones that asked Baekbeom to get Baekhyun out of the house so we could talk to you for as long as we needed.”

Of course. Chanyeol was the only one left in the dark. But for some reason, he didn’t mind. He wished that his friends could’ve left him in the dark some more and not tell him about the book, but he knew they wouldn’t do that. Not to him. He had every right to know about the book, even if he didn’t want to.

“Is this it?” Chanyeol asked, pointing at the hardbound in front of them.

Jongdae nodded.

Chanyeol gingerly picked up the book, tracing his fingers on the gold text embossed on the cover. It was an academic submission, if the glaring logo of Rochefort University on it was any indication. His eyes scanned the words printed on the face of the book:

 _Presented to the Literature Department_  
_Rochefort University_  
 _2nd Semester, A.Y. 2014 - 2015_

 _In partial fulfillment_  
_of the course_  
 _Fiction Writing Techniques_

_“Wednesdays”  
A novella_

_Submitted by:  
Byun Baekhyun_

_Submitted to:  
Dr. Jun Jihyun, PhD_

_December 9, 2015_

Wednesdays. The narrator was right again. This was what that Wednesday was all about.

“Well, thank god he didn’t write fanfiction about me,” Chanyeol joked half-heartedly. No one at the table laughed. “I’m guessing you tracked down one of his previous professors just like you said you would?” Chanyeol said to Jongdae.

The professor nodded. “I also know why he transferred on his last year. It all started to make sense after Baekbeom told me everything.”

And so Jongdae told him.

Baekhyun’s mom was diagnosed with cancer just after his would-be last semester in Rochefort. He and his brother drove to Rousseau over the winter break to tell their estranged father, to urge him to come home and see their mom even just for one last time. Something went wrong along the way—an accident that would cost Baekhyun his memory of the past year, inducing a post-traumatic amnesia that was a mix of the anterograde and retrograde type, Jongdae said, which explained why Baekhyun had trouble remembering things that happened recently before the accident and had a difficult time retaining those memories even after he was reminded of them.

Unfortunately, that included knowledge of his mother having cancer. He stayed in Rousseau to recover from the accident, and eventually graduated from college and worked shortly at a publication house there.

“He only moved back here a few months ago because he legitimately thought that that was when his mother was only diagnosed,” Jongdae concluded.

“So… he doesn’t remember writing this book,” Chanyeol said.

Jongdae shook his head. “I’m afraid not. And I don’t think he would remember for a long while even after we tell him about it.”

“Why didn’t his family just tell him about the accident?”

“They did, Yeol,” Kyungsoo said. “Countless times. But Baekhyun kept forgetting anyway. It was no use. The few years before the accident will always be a black hole in Baekhyun’s mind no matter how much remind him.”

Chanyeol returned his attention back to the book he was holding. Carefully, he turned the cover, as if the hardbound would collapse if it were treated harshly. Somewhere deep in his heart, he hoped that the book would spontaneously combust or be destroyed in some other way. Maybe if it didn’t exist, its contents wouldn’t become reality.

The very first page of the book only had a few words on it. The dedication page.

 _To Mom_  
_I want to express my love for you_  
 _in the best way that I can—_  
 _through writing._

“I don’t know why he dedicated it to his mom, though,” Jongdae said. “Kind of odd for him to dedicate a story that ends in death to his mom who was actually dying—”

Kyungsoo shot Jongdae a look. Jongdae muttered a quiet apology.

But Chanyeol knew why Baekhyun dedicated his story to his mother. It was because his mom was a fan of Chanyeol’s.

“Do… do you want to read it?” Jongdae asked.

“No,” Chanyeol replied without even thinking too much about it, slowly closing the book and placing it back on the table. His stomach had sunken to his feet, but he managed to joke, “I want to be surprised. I know the ending already, anyway. I want to be surprised, even for the last time.”

Jongdae nodded solemnly. Kyungsoo took Chanyeol’s hand which was way too big compared to his, and on any other day, Chanyeol would’ve laughed at this. Now, he just wanted to hug his best friend for as long as he could, knowing that he might not have the chance to anymore.

But the real reason why Chanyeol didn’t want to read the story was because a small fraction of his heart still hoped that it would end differently.

—

Chanyeol drew lazy circles on Baekhyun’s back as they lay together on the bed, their legs tangled underneath the messy sheets. Baekhyun rested against his chest, exhaling satisfiedly as he caught his breath. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on Baekhyun’s face and body, and Chanyeol thought that he looked beautiful like this, the afterglow still fresh on his features. Well, Chanyeol always thought that Baekhyun looked beautiful whatever time of the day it was.

“Chan… what’s wrong?” Baekhyun asked out of the blue, as if sensing the dread swirling inside Chanyeol’s chest. He somehow unfailingly knew whenever something was bothering Chanyeol.

Chanyeol transferred his fingers to the strands of hair sticking on Baekhyun’s forehead, softly combing them back into place. “Nothing. I just got a call from Junmyeon earlier today, something about a possible project,” he lied. He hadn’t talked to his manager in months.

“That’s great!” A wide smile spread across Baekhyun’s lips, exposing his perfect teeth that Chanyeol found unbearably cute. “What’s the project about? What role did they offer you?”

Chanyeol forced down the rock lodged in his throat. “Well… I haven’t seen the script yet. But they said that it was about a man who knew his days were numbered. Honestly, I don’t know if I should take it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know if I can play that part.”

Baekhyun shifted his weight so that he was now fully reposing on Chanyeol’s torso, his chin resting on the back of his palms and his face only inches away from his boyfriend’s. “I think you’ve forgotten that you’re the _amazing_ Park Chanyeol and that you could play any role given to you,” he said. “You even played a serial killer, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yeah, but… it’s just that I don’t know how I would act if I knew I was going to be gone soon,” Chanyeol replied truthfully. “Okay, let me ask you a purely hypothetical question.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“If you knew you were going to die soon, how would you spend the rest of your life?”

Baekhyun smiled cheekily. “Easy. I’d spend that time with you.”

Chanyeol tried his best to ignore the wild thrashing of his heart against his ribs, but failed miserably. Heat crept up to his cheeks as he looked at Baekhyun’s eyes and saw nothing but affection. Baekhyun gazed at him as if he was the constellations, and he wasn’t sure if he deserved to be stared at like that, but for Baekhyun, he would try his best to be deserving of his love.

“Okay,” he beamed. “What else?”

Baekhyun thought for a moment, humming as his eyes went around the room without his head leaving the expanse of Chanyeol’s chest. “I don’t know. I guess I’d do things I’ve always wanted to do. Like learn how to ice skate or something. And then tie a few loose ends, say sorry to the people I’ve done wrong to and thank those who never left me, even at my worst. You know, typical imminent doomsday agenda.”

Chanyeol cupped Baekhyun’s chin and gave him a deep kiss.

“Thanks, Baek,” he whispered after pulling away. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

Chanyeol knew what he was going to do tomorrow.

—

Chanyeol nervously drummed his fingers against his thighs as he waited outside his manager’s apartment. It took every last bit of his courage and a whole lot of keeping his pride in check before he managed to drive himself to where he was right now. He hadn’t bothered to call Junmyeon beforehand because he felt like a phone call wasn’t an appropriate move after not seeing or talking to him in months.

He rang the doorbell once more just in case Junmyeon hadn’t heard the first five hundred. _Was he even home?_ Chanyeol thought.

Chanyeol was about to turn to his heel and leave the building empty-handed when the door swung open, revealing a very sleepy Junmyeon who obviously just woke up, still rubbing the sleep away from his eyes.

“Y-Yeol?” The manager asked unsurely, thinking he was still in bed dreaming. Chanyeol wasn’t the first one to reach out after a fight. “It’s Sunday… What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Myeon,” Chanyeol smiled. “I’m sorry for bothering you so early on a weekend but… can I come in?”

 

Junmyeon kept stealing glances from where Chanyeol was seated on the living room couch as he prepared coffee for both of them. The earthy aroma of coffee mixed with the tension that hung low in the air, neither of them wanting to break the silence.

Junmyeon was the first to speak. “So… any reason why you came here?” He asked as he poured a generous amount of milk into Chanyeol’s mug. He knew just how Chanyeol liked it: half and half. “You usually never come to my apartment.”

“I just wanted to apologize,” Chanyeol said quietly, tapping his upper leg with the pads of his fingers, a habit he did when he was either nervous or embarrassed. “You know… for the stuff I said a while back. I didn’t mean any of it. I take it all back.”

As if a huge bone got unstuck in his heart, Junmyeon felt his chest lighten at Chanyeol’s words. “I was never mad at you,” he smiled. “I just didn’t reach out sooner because I was waiting for you to cool off for a bit. I didn’t want to make you angrier than you already were. I was just waiting for the right time to talk to you again.”

“Well, I mean if it took you months before reaching out, then that just proves that I was a huge asshole that day,” Chanyeol said. “I’m sorry. Really, I am.”

Junmyeon transferred himself from the kitchen counter to the living room with two cups of freshly-brewed coffee in his hand, handing Chanyeol his mug before settling on the space beside him on the sofa. He could feel Chanyeol tense up as he was sitting, and he inwardly flinched at that, thinking that they should not be this awkward with each other after years and years of working together and being friends.

“It’s okay, Yeol,” Junmyeon smiled kindly. “I wouldn’t have lasted as a manager for more than a decade if I didn’t know how to handle attitude once in a while. You’re actually an upgrade from the assholes I used to manage back in the day.”

Chanyeol finally let himself laugh, his shoulders loosening up. “God, you’re old. So… that’s it? We’re good?”

“We are,” Junmyeon nodded, smiling. “Actually, I was going to drive to your apartment this week to give you something.”

Junmyeon abruptly stood up from the couch and went to his room to retrieve something.

“Thank god you didn’t come there unannounced or else you would have seen Baekhyun and then I’d have to explain myself and then things would be a lot more awkward than they already needed to be and—” Chanyeol blurted, stopping himself when Junmyeon returned to the living room, obviously hiding something behind his back. “What’s that?”

“Who’s Baekhyun?” Junmyeon asked.

“He’s my boyfriend… What are you hiding there?”

Junmyeon ignored him again, slapping Chanyeol’s arm playfully as he feigned annoyance. “You got yourself a boyfriend and you didn’t even tell me.”

“I was going to tell you but…” Chanyeol faltered. Not taking the suspense any longer, he jumped from the sofa and snatched the thing his manager was hiding behind him. “What’s this— Oh.”

It was a silver card, an invitation. Written in fancy, cursive letters was:

_Together with the Kim & Bae families_

_Junmyeon & Joohyun_

_Invite you to celebrate  
their marriage_

_5 p.m. - 4 October 2018_

_The Royal Solène Gardens_  
_followed by dinner at the_  
 _Gervaise Bay Yacht Club_

_Please dress formally_

“What the fuck,” Chanyeol said after reading everything.

“Is that… a good ‘what the fuck’ or a bad ‘what the fuck’?”

Chanyeol jokingly glared at his manager. “You’re mad at me for not telling you I have a boyfriend, but at the same time, you _somehow_ failed to mention proposing to Joohyun and then setting a date. I feel betrayed.”

“I couldn’t exactly tell you while you were moping in your apartment avoiding me,” Junmyeon laughed nervously, scratching at the back of his neck.

“I’m so happy for you,” Chanyeol said. He stood up from the couch and gave Junmyeon the tightest hug he could give him. He didn’t know if this would be the last hug they would share.

Realizing that, Chanyeol’s stomach dropped. He didn’t even know if he would be there to see one of his closest friends get married. He had no idea if he would have the chance to see Junmyeon tearing up as he watched Joohyun walk down the aisle. He didn’t know if he would get to tease him about it some time after the wedding. He didn’t know which day was going to be his last.

Ignoring the piercing pain in his chest, Chanyeol said, “Who’s the best man?”

“Would you be mad if I said it wasn’t you?” Junmyeon chuckled.

“No,” Chanyeol smiled. If anything, he was relieved. He didn’t want Junmyeon to be missing a best man on the most important day of his life. “Who is it?”

“Sehun.”

“That brat.”

Junmyeon laughed. “He misses you, you know. Wants us to grab some drinks. I said no because he’s been drowning himself in alcohol lately. I want his liver to rest for a while.” Breaking away from the hug, he added, “The agency called a few days ago. They said they received a love call from Ha Sang-min, asking for you specifically. Something about a _sageuk_ drama.”

“I’ll think about it,” Chanyeol said quietly.

“Why?” Junmyeon furrowed his eyebrows. “You don’t want to take it? It’s Director Ha Sang-min we’re talking about.”

“I know who he is,” Chanyeol smiled glumly. “It’s just that… I’ll be going away for a while and I don’t think I can accept that responsibility just yet. I’ll have to think it over.”

“Where are you going?”

“Far.”

Junmyeon decided to ignore Chanyeol’s cryptic answer. “When are you leaving?”

Chanyeol heaved a deep sigh and gave Junmyeon one last hug. “I don’t know yet.”

—

Taking Baekhyun’s advice on tying up loose ends, Chanyeol still had one more thing on his agenda.

The drive to Marchal was excruciatingly long, but somehow eased Chanyeol’s nerves. He couldn’t even remember the last time he went back to his hometown after he settled in the Big City all those years ago and made a name for himself. He had nothing against the quiet of the countryside; his nonexistent fondness for it stemmed from growing up in a house that didn’t feel like home, and nobody could blame him for not yearning for the place where he spent his childhood, not even his mother.

In fact, his mother should understand out of all people.

Marchal was exactly like how Chanyeol left it. The shops in the center of town still closed way too early, the streets of the main avenue almost deserted as Chanyeol drove by. This would be a nice place to settle with Baekhyun, he thought: peaceful, sparsely populated, isolated from the hustle and bustle of the Big City.

But that was an idea for some other time.

As he pulled up on the alien yet familiar driveway of his paternal home, he had his first good look at the villa where he grew up in after years and years of trying to erase it from his memory. He got out of the car and took shaky, unsure steps to the front door.

He didn’t even have to knock, his mother slowly opening the door just as he arrived at the top of the small steps of the porch.

“Yeollie,” she smiled warmly. “I heard your car coming.”

“Hi, Mom,” he greeted her, wrapping her in an embrace.

His mom was still as graceful as ever as she walked back and forth the kitchen that was too big for any of them. The villa still felt hollow and cold as ever, the only sign of familial warmth radiating from his mother. She was the only one that ever tried to make it a home, anyway.

Chanyeol often wondered why his mom chose to stay in this big ugly mansion even after he offered to buy her a nice apartment just a few blocks from his own. Did she do it because leaving the villa would be a waste—of money, of time, of effort? Or did she stay because she still had an emotional attachment to the place even after years of dealing with abuse right under its roof?

Chanyeol finally had the courage to ask her after all these years: “Mom, why don’t you just leave this house?”

His mother stopped mixing the arrabbiata sauce for a moment. With another warm smile, she said, “What do you mean, Yeollie? This is our home. I’ll never have the heart to leave it.”

“I know, but what I’m asking is _why_ ,” Chanyeol explained. “And this isn’t a home. It’s just a house. It never felt like home when I was still living here.”

“This is about your father, isn’t it?” She asked quietly. When Chanyeol didn’t reply, she said, “Your father was the reason why this never felt like home to you. But my reason for calling this home is because of you and your sister.”

Chanyeol winced at the mention of Yoora. They never talked about her, not even when he still lived here. Her name held so much pain and suffering, and it was another reason why he would never forgive his father, not even after death.

It was a drunk driving incident that took his sweet sister, his father the one behind the wheel. He was punished for it, of course. His father got disbarred and was banned from entering any kind of courtroom, but Chanyeol always felt that it was still a light sentence given all the other monstrous things he did to their family. His mother still had the scars to prove that.

“This is my home,” his mother said firmly. “And it’s not because of the man I wrongfully tied my life to. It’s because this is the place where I had you and Yoora, where I cared for and watched both of you grow, no matter how short-lived your childhood was. This is my home because this is the place where I loved my children.”

Chanyeol stood up from the dining table and hugged his mom from behind.

“I love you, Mom,” he whispered into her hair. “But I don’t want you to grow old alone here. Move to the city. I’ll buy you a big apartment just a short walk from mine, so then I’ll always have the chance to visit you.”

“Yeollie,” she laughed softly. “I’ve already grown old here. I don’t mind getting older a bit more. And you don’t have to visit all the time. I enjoy your visits here. It feels like how it did when you were a kid all over again.”

Chanyeol kissed his mom’s temple.

When the arrabbiata began to simmer, she scooped up a small amount and held up the wooden spoon in front of Chanyeol’s lips for him to have a taste. As the symphony of tomatoes, garlic, and spices danced on his tongue, Chanyeol realized that this was what home tasted like—a taste he only came to recognize now that he was all grown-up.

—

Baekhyun’s humming stirred Chanyeol out of sleep.

It was faint, but Chanyeol could recognize the tune. It was the song he sang to Baekhyun all those nights ago, the song that made Baekhyun his.

When he opened his eyes, it was Baekhyun’s slender fingers that first came into view, gently tracing the bridge of his nose. Chanyeol was never going to get tired of waking up to Baekhyun’s antics.

“Good morning,” Baekhyun whispered, planting a soft kiss on Chanyeol’s cheeks. He smelled like his shampoo, the scent of strawberry fields when the warm summer breeze blew through the orchards. “I already took a shower because you were still sleeping so soundly. Sorry I didn’t get to invite you,” he giggled.

“Unfair,” Chanyeol whined, sleep still clouding his mind. “You should’ve just dragged me to the bathroom.”

Baekhyun kissed him again, this time on the lips. “I have the day off today.”

“I know.”

“So… what are we doing today?”

To answer Baekhyun’s question, Chanyeol gently tugged at his neck so he could kiss him. Deeply. Baekhyun’s hands landed on Chanyeol’s bare chest to position himself better, Chanyeol making no attempt to let go of Baekhyun’s mouth.

Heat spread throughout Chanyeol’s body, and he could feel Baekhyun toughening from above him. A soft moan escaped Baekhyun’s lips when he grazed against Chanyeol’s inner thigh.

“Oh, so this is what we’re doing today,” Baekhyun said.

Chanyeol kissed him again instead of replying. Holding Baekhyun’s waist, he flipped them over in one swift motion so that he was now hovering on top of him, his weight supported by his forearms on either side of Baekhyun’s head, his lips still languidly moving against his boyfriend’s.

Baekhyun’s skillful hands began exploring until they landed just where Chanyeol wanted them to, eliciting a groan from him. Baekhyun never had to do much for Chanyeol to unravel under his touch, as if Chanyeol was a puppet under his strings.

Despite the hunger and pleasure coursing through Chanyeol’s veins, a bad feeling settled at the bottom of his gut and he hoped that Baekhyun couldn’t tell. He somehow knew that tomorrow was going to be his last, and all he wanted to do today was stay in and make Baekhyun his in all aspects of the expression.

And so he did.

They spent the day coming undone under each other’s bodies, taking only brief breaks in between when they got hungry and needed to attend to other things, reclaiming each other’s lips when they got those out of the way and made love wherever possible—the couch, the shower, even the kitchen counter that felt cold against their skin and then warmed up when they were done.

Chanyeol had no regrets in how he spent his last full day with Baekhyun.

As they lay with each other that night, breaths still erratic from all the groaning, Baekhyun uttered, “I love you, Chan. So much.”

Thankful for the darkness of the room, Chanyeol let a tear slip from his eye. “I love you too. Byun Baekhyun, I love you more than you can imagine.”

Baekhyun hummed contentedly against Chanyeol’s neck, sleep lulling him in.

Little did he know that this was Chanyeol’s last night with him.

—

When Chanyeol woke up, Baekhyun had already left for work.

He stopped hanging around KBC some time ago, much to Kibum’s disappointment and Kyungsoo’s delight. He had no reason to lounge around there anymore, not when he spent every other moment that Baekhyun wasn’t at work with the love of his life.

Chanyeol looked out the window as he stretched away the sleep from his bones. The sky looked perfect, brilliant white clouds rolling over the city as they were pushed by a soft breeze. The sun didn’t shine too harshly; people could walk comfortably under it without the need for umbrellas, rushing to wherever they needed to be.

Chanyeol had nowhere to be, but for some reason, he wanted to go to the beach. He decided he would go after eating.

He made his way to the kitchen to prepare himself breakfast, noticing a pink sticky note pinned on the fridge with Baekhyun’s ugly yet adorable handwriting scrawled on the surface:

_I hope you’ll have a perfect day today even if I’m not there.  
I can’t wait to get home to you._

_Love,  
B_

He brought out some eggs from the fridge as he smiled to himself, feeling giddy from Baekhyun’s thoughtful note. He wished that he could have woken up earlier so that he had the chance to make his wonderful boyfriend a nice breakfast before he went to work, but he figured that he’d have to compensate in some other way. Glancing at the kitchen counter where they did unspeakable things the previous night, an idea grew inside Chanyeol’s mind.

Chanyeol was surprised that the eggs didn’t look like they were thrown up when he cracked them on the pan, the sizzling sound of frying filling his apartment. He usually messed up the eggs when he cooked, but today, they were perfect.

After cleaning up after himself, Chanyeol quickly showered to get ready for his day trip to the beach. While thinking of things to bring for his short escapade, his eyes landed on the blue paperback novel Baekhyun gave him a while ago. He hadn’t had the chance to actually read it yet; perhaps today wasn’t too late to get started on it. He grabbed the book as he slung his beach bag over his shoulder and left his apartment.

Traffic conditions were perfect today, too.

Usually it didn’t matter what time of the day it was because it was always rush hour in the Big City, but today, few cars littered the roads. Everybody must have thought that it was a good day to save the environment and take the bus, Chanyeol thought.

While waiting for the traffic light to go green, Chanyeol’s eyes fell once again on The Great Gatsby novel that Baekhyun gave to him as a gift that was sitting just above his beach bag in the passenger seat. He had a weird feeling about it for some reason.

Meanwhile, a school bus was loading what looked like kindergarteners, parked at the side of the street where Chanyeol was turning right to.

The light turned green. Chanyeol drove forward.

On the far side of the other street, a truck driver was screaming profanities as he lost control of the brakes of the vehicle. The truck was hurling at the intersection where Chanyeol was about to turn right and down the street where the school bus was parked with no way of slowing down.

Chanyeol looked to his left.

Everything moved in slow motion.

Chanyeol ran through the situation in his mind. If he swerved and avoided the truck, it would ram straight through the school bus, killing all those innocent lives who were just trying to get to school. If he hit his brakes, it would kill him, who was just trying to get to the beach.

It was a no-brainer.

Chanyeol slammed his feet onto the brake pedal. Hard.

He barely felt the impact. What he felt was the violent spinning of his car.

As the world spun around him, Chanyeol thought about how everything had been perfect in order to lead him to this moment. Yesterday ended perfectly; he and Baekhyun slept early that night so that neither of them would sleep in. The weather today was perfect. The eggs he cooked for breakfast were perfect. Everything had to be perfect so that he wouldn’t be late, not even for a single second—he had to be in this place at this exact time. Everything was perfect.

Baekhyun was the last face Chanyeol thought of before he closed his eyes.

—

Jongdae rushed to the faculty parking lot the moment he received the call from Kyungsoo. _“A car accident was reported on Aubin Avenue. That has to be Chanyeol.”_

Not caring who or what he hit, he ran through campus, his legs taking the fastest and widest stride they could just to get him to his car as soon as possible. Nothing else mattered right now. He had to get there, even if he knew nothing would change.

Dr. Jun screaming his name stopped Jongdae in his tracks. She was holding another dark green hardbound book.

“Jihyun, I’m so sorry, but I can’t talk right now,” he explained hastily, panting as he caught his breath.

“Oh. I was just going to give you this,” she said, handing the book to Jongdae.

Jongdae’s brows arched in confusion. “You have another copy? You already gave me the other one a few weeks ago.”

“That was an incomplete copy,” Dr. Jun said. Jongdae’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. _Incomplete?_ “I found this one the other day while I was doing some cleaning on my desk, then I remembered that the younger Byun passed another copy, saying that the first one he submitted didn’t have the last few pages. A misprint, he said.”

Without saying a word, Jongdae grabbed the book from Dr. Jun’s hands and hurriedly flipped to the last page. His heart was beating so fast as he read through the last page, relief washing over him like a cold shower on a hot summer day when his eyes ended on the very last sentence of the book.

He dialed Kyungsoo’s number, a smile plastered on his face. Dr. Jun was looking at him oddly, but he couldn’t care less. The only thing that mattered was—

“Soo,” he said excitedly into the receiver. “Chanyeol’s going to be okay.”

—

Everything smelled like alcohol—not the kind that was drunk, but the kind that was used to clean hands and treat wounds and sanitize things. The scent was everywhere. It was too much. It was overwhelming.

Chanyeol couldn’t move. His body hurt everywhere: his head, his face, his neck, his chest, his arms, his feet. God, his feet hurt _so badly._ Something was _definitely_ broken over there.

Even breathing was indescribably painful. Chanyeol felt like his lungs were bruised; every intake of breath drove daggers to his chest, but he literally had no other choice but to breathe. He had to endure the pain.

He opened his eyes, momentarily blinded by the striking whiteness of the room. A man with a white coat stood beside where he was lying. The man looked utterly bored, scribbling notes onto a clipboard.

“You’re up,” the man said.

“I’m up,” Chanyeol repeated. “W-what happened?”

The man—doctor, Chanyeol realized—wrote down a few other things before replying. “You used your car to stop a truck from hitting some kids. That was a heroic thing to do. Unfortunately, you were sitting inside your car,” he said, his voice completely void of any emotion. Chanyeol wondered if there was something wrong with him or if it was just his natural manner of speaking.

“But… I’m not dead, right?”

“I certainly hope you’re not because I’m setting my doctor’s license on fire if I’m conversing with a dead person right now,” the doctor said. Chanyeol thought that he meant it as a joke, but there was nothing funny about his tone. “In other news, you have a broken bone in your leg, three dislocated ribs, and fractured both of your hands. Anyway, you should thank your being not dead to the book over there.”

With much difficulty, Chanyeol managed to turn his head to where the doctor was pointing to: The Great Gatsby paperback. Baekhyun’s book. It was bloody and tattered, but Chanyeol could recognize it anywhere.

“H-how…”

“I literally have no idea how it was possible, but when the police found you, this book was in front of your chest, shielding your heart from being stabbed by some metal rod or something. I’m not sure. That’s just what the paramedics told me,” he explained uninterestedly.

Chanyeol looked at the novel again, noticing just now the hole right in the middle of it.

The doctor sighed as he glanced at the door. “You have a visitor. Just press the button if something hurts. I’ll be leaving now,” he said, and then left the room.

Baekhyun, being the loudmouth he was, burst through the room screaming a string of unintelligible sentences, the sole one that Chanyeol understood was: “What the fuck happened, Park Chanyeol?”

When Baekhyun’s attack of kisses subsided, Chanyeol replied, “I stopped in front of a truck to save little kids boarding their school bus.”

“The fuck?”

“I had to,” Chanyeol tried to shrug, but then remembered that he was practically mummified at the moment. “I had no other choice. It was me or them, and they… Baek, they were so young. They still had their whole lives in front of them.”

“You’re so fucking stupid,” Baekhyun said, his eyes pooling up with tears. “You could’ve died. You could’ve died, and… and… what was I supposed to do then? Huh? Selfish asshole.”

Chanyeol laughed, but his three dislocated ribs were punishing him for it. “So you’re saying I should’ve just let those poor little kids die?”

“No,” Baekhyun replied petulantly. “That’s actually pretty cool. My boyfriend’s stupid, but I have to admit, that was brave.”

“Stop crying now, you big baby,” Chanyeol said. “I would wipe your tears right now but my hands are…”

Baekhyun laughed as he removed the streaks that his tears left with the back of his hand.

Chanyeol wanted to cry, but he was too damn happy that he couldn’t stop smiling. Sure, he was happy that he wasn’t dead, but he was happier that one of the first things that he heard after waking up from the accident was Baekhyun’s laughter—and that he now had the chance to keep hearing it for the rest of his days.

Baekhyun kissed Chanyeol. Again and again. And then some more. Until Chanyeol complained about _literally_ not being able to breathe. He still felt like shit; every bone and muscle in his body ached like they’ve been pounded with a million mallets, but Chanyeol has never felt more alive with Baekhyun looking at him like he was the stars, the moon, the sunrises, the sunsets, and every other view that took one’s breath away.

It was the book that Baekhyun gave him that Chanyeol had to thank for being alive, but it was truly Baekhyun himself that saved Chanyeol’s life. Baekhyun saved him in more ways than one.

 

 

 

**_The End_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist (listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/mb341q9g08ycuthfo18wez2v1/playlist/3WNUG9bZPGgxoqWOar7tzx?si=bySHY6naRn-yh9grHcOK-Q)):  
> 1\. Kina Grannis - Can't Help Falling In Love - From "Crazy Rich Asians" Soundtrack  
> 2\. Daniel Caesar - Best Part (feat. H.E.R.)  
> 3\. HONNE - Warm On A Cold Night  
> 4\. Daniel Caesar - Japanese Denim  
> 5\. Motopony - Wait For Me  
> 6\. EXO - 지나갈 테니 Been Through  
> 7\. Sam Kim - MAMA DON'T WORRY  
> 8\. RINI - My Favourite Clothes  
> 9\. We Are The Night - 그 드라마처럼 Like The Movie  
> 10\. Sam Kim - YOUR SONG (with 이진아, 정승환 & 권진아)
> 
> Thank you for reading until the end! Say hello: [Tumblr](http://pcychedelic.tumblr.com/) / [Twitter](http://twitter.com/pcychedeiic/)
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting what I do by [buying me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/pcychedelic). ♡


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